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Posts Tagged ‘Light Rum’

Jean Harlow*

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

*Recent ruminations from LUPEC, as originally published in the Weekly Dig.

March 3rd marks the birthday of blonde bombshell, Jean Harlow. Born Harlean Carpenter but affectionately known as “the Baby,” the actress would have turned 100 this week.

Harlow’s career started as a happy accident when she drove a friend to an audition at Fox shortly after she moved to California with her first husband. Though fascinated by the studio environment, 17-year-old Jean had no desire to become an actress—even after her friend returned to the car with three Fox executives in tow, who produced a letter of introduction to the head of casting after laying eyes on the beauty. Weeks later she took them up on the offer just to win a bet.

Known for her on-screen persona as a vampy sex object, off-screen Jean possessed a naiveté and complete lack of guile about her considerable physical attributes. “When we walked down the street, she would literally stop traffic,” a high school classmate of hers remembered. “Men would climb out of their cars and follow her.”

Frank Capra was the first director to take an interest in cultivating Harlow’s talents as an actress when they worked together on Platinum Blonde, and his efforts paid off. Her next film, Red-Headed Woman, elevated her from sex goddess to comedic actress and was, in Harlow’s words, “the first chance I ever had to do something in pictures other than swivel my hips.”

Baby Jean’s career came to an untimely end when she died from kidney failure in 1937 at just 26 years old. With over 40 films already under her belt, many believe she might have gone on to become one of the most accomplished actresses in American cinema. Here’s to Baby Jean.

PLATINUM BLONDE

1 1/2 oz light rum
1/2 oz cream
1/2 oz Cointreau

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

CIN-CIN!
FOR MORE GREAT COCKTAIL RECIPES VISIT LUPECBOSTON.COM.

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Mountains of Ice*

Posted in Weekly Dig, tagged , , , , , , on December 8, 2010| 1 Comment »

*Recent ruminations from LUPEC Boston as originally published in the Weekly Dig.

by Pink Lady

Did you know that ice is an American invention? Well, kind of. No one can claim ownership of frozen water, of course, but dropping a cube of it into beverages on a hot summer day was not such an easy luxury in the days before refrigeration. We can thank Frederic Tudor’s Yankee ingenuity for exporting the wonders of the ice-cold beverage to warmer regions of the world.

A well-to-do Bostonian, Tudor dropped out of school at Boston Latin at age 13, spurning a college education at Harvard to pursue fortune in his own inventions. As the story goes, Tudor discovered his calling at 17 while seeking a cold beverage in Cuba without success. He decided then and there to create a business out of “harvesting ice” from the local New England ponds that freeze so solidly each winter.

Tudor’s idea was at first met with ridicule but eventually grew into an empire. He sourced ice from familiar spots like Walden and Fresh Pond and shipped it around the world to Europe, the Caribbean, and even to the British East India Company in Calcutta. Tudor became known as Boston’s Ice King and died in 1864 a wealthy man. He even created an offshoot industry for Maine’s sawmills by insulating his precious cargo with the sawdust they’d previously thrown away.

Let’s raise a glass to Tudor as the holidays – and the many parties that ensue – approach. Several weeks ago, we LUPEC ladies got our hands on a special, modern invention that has satiated our high volume ice needs, the NewAir AI-100SS countertop ice maker from Air & Water. The kind folks in the marketing department offered us a chance to put this toy to the test. We’ve done so at several cocktail parties and found the machine to be true to its promise: it can make up to 35 pounds of ice per day and the first batch of ice cubes are complete in 15 minutes. Set-up and clean-up is delightfully facilement.

You may rarely have need for 35 pounds of ice, and equally little use for the urn you bought that offers coffee service for 45. But if you do enjoy entertaining, or simply enjoy being totally prepared every single time you do, this kitchen gadget may be just the thing for you.

Frederic Tudor would be impressed by how far we’ve come.

 

FROSTY DAWN

1 1/2 oz light rum

1 oz orange juice

1/2 oz falernum

1/4 oz maraschino liqueur

Shake in iced cocktail shaker. Strain into a chilled vintage cocktail glass.

Cin-cin!

FOR MORE GREAT COCKTAIL RECIPES VISIT LUPECBOSTON.COM.

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Martha Washington’s Rum Punch

Posted in Weekly Dig, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2010| 3 Comments »

*Recent ruminations from LUPEC Boston, originally published in the Weekly Dig.

by Pink Lady + Hanky Panky

In honor of the anniversary of the birth of our nation, the ladies of LUPEC raise our glasses to the original first lady.

Regardless of party affiliation, most of us can agree that our very first president was a relatively stand-up guy, and his wife, Martha (to quote the stoner in Dazed and Confused), “was a hip, hip, hip lady.” And as a couple, George and Martha Washington knew how to party.

Martha took her entertaining duties as first lady very seriously. She hosted lavish parties at the then-capital cities of New York and Philadelphia, and the Washingtons’ estate, Mount Vernon. She wanted our nubile country and government to be on par with our European counterparts, and entertained in a similar formal style. Most of Martha’s affairs began with signature drinks served before dinner, which were likely made with spirits from Washington’s own distillery, one of the largest and most profitable during the colonial era.

According to the Mount Vernon Historical Society, George Washington favored sweet fortified wines like Madeira and port, and was also a fan of Rum Punch. So are we! Here’s Martha’s original recipe (from her notes).

MARTHA WASHINGTON’S RUM PUNCH

4 oz lemon juice
4 oz orange juice
4 oz simple syrup
3 lemons quartered
1 orange quartered
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
3 cinnamon sticks broken
6 cloves
12 oz boiling water

In a container, mash the lemons, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks and cloves. Add syrup, lemon and orange juice. Pour the boiling water over the mixture. Let it cool. Strain out the solids. Heat the juice mixture to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool and refrigerate overnight.

In a punch bowl, combine:

3 parts juice mixture
1 part light rum
1 part dark rum
1/2 part orange curaçao

Serve the punch over ice. Top with grated nutmeg and cinnamon.

CIN-CIN!

For more stories on Presidential tippling, check out this post-election day post from Nov 2008.

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A Toast to Oscar Victory*

Posted in Weekly Dig, Women's History, tagged , , , , , on March 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

*Recent ruminations from LUPEC Boston, as previously published in The Weekly Dig.

We’re thrilled to celebrate history-making forebroads in honor of Women’s History Month this March. What could be better than raising a glass (or three) to a woman who made history this month?

On March 7th, Kathryn Bigelow became the first female director to win two of the most coveted Oscars the academy has to offer, “best director” and “best film,” for her low-budget, low-grossing, critically acclaimed drama, The Hurt Locker. (It also managed to beat out a little ditty directed by her ex-husband that cost over 15 times as much to make and grossed almost 100 times as much at the box office.) Bigelow is the first woman to take home the best director title in the ceremony’s 82-year existence.

LUPEC Boston was shocked to learn how sorely underrepresented women are among Hollywood’s power elite. Dr. Martha Lauzen of San Diego State explains the phenomenon in her regularly published “Celluloid Ceiling” survey: Of the top 250 grossing movies this year, just 16 percent of directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors were women. Female directors represented 7 percent (the same percentage they held back in 1987, when hair bands and acid-wash jeans seemed like a good idea), and women writers make up only 8 percent.

Nevertheless, 2009 was heralded as “The Year of the Woman” in Hollywood, in part because two of the year’s top-grossing films (New Moon and The Proposal) had female leads, and also because some high-profile female directors had new releases, including Nora Ephron, Jane Campion and Lone Scherfig (whose An Education was also a best picture nominee). But Bigelow was the fourth woman to even be nominated for best director since the advent of the academy.

Manohla Dargis points out in a recent New York Times story that the win is more than a milestone; it’s “also helped dismantle stereotypes about what types of films women can and should direct.” Bigelow generally makes “kinetic and thrilling movies about men and codes of masculinity set in worlds of violence.”

This season, Bigelow’s gripping Hurt Locker swept the awards circuit, racking up trophies from the Directors Guild of America for “outstanding direction,” a nomination for a Golden Globe, a “best direction” award from BAFTA, nine Oscar nominations and six Oscar victories.

Today we raise a glass to Kathryn Bigelow, who is accused of making movies “like a man” nearly as often as we are accused of drinking like one.

HOLLYWOOD COCKTAIL

1 1/2 oz light rum

1/2 egg white

1/2 oz grenadine

1/2 oz grapefruit juice

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and dry shake to emulsify. Add ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled vintage cocktail glass. Garnish with fresh-grated nutmeg.

CIN-CIN!

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What Would Jackie Drink?*

Posted in Weekly Dig, tagged , , , , , , , on September 16, 2009| 3 Comments »

*LUPEC Boston’s latest ruminations, in case you missed ‘em in this week’s issue of The Weekly Dig.

Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and Michelle Obama are two of LUPEC Boston’s favorite First Ladies, so we jumped at the chance to participate in a recent fundraiser at the Boston Center for Adult Education, celebrating these ladies as style icons. What’s a good fundraiser without a good cocktail? LUPEC stepped in to supply the drinks, prompting us to ask: What would Jackie/Michelle drink?

Answering that question for Michelle Obama proved a bit more difficult (which we’ll address next week), but we know that during her White House years, Jackie Kennedy famously enjoyed daiquiris. If images of hot pink frozen concoctions come to mind when you hear the word daiquiri, think again. In its original incarnation, this classic is a far cry from the Ultimate Mango Berry variety found at T. G. I. Friday’s. A simple mixture of rum, fresh lime juice and sugar, the daiquiri is both classy and accessible, much like the late Jackie Kennedy.

There are many legends about the history of the daiquiri cocktail, all of which link the drink to a region of Cuba that was a strategic landing point for American troops during the Spanish American War. One story has American engineer Jennings S. Cox inventing the drink for a colleague with the few resources he had in his storeroom (lemon, sugar and lime) while working in an iron mine called Daiquiri in 1896. In another, an American general named William Shafter discovers the regional specialty while deployed in the town of Daiquiri, Cuba, in 1898. A third blames Havana-based barman Constantino Ribalaigua Vert for popularizing the drink at his El Floridita bar, albeit in a slightly different incarnation—with crushed ice and maraschino. Ernest Hemingway famously took a shine to a variation of this version, requesting his as a double with no sugar and calling it “Papa Dobles.”

None of these legends can be proven, of course, but the simple marriage of rum, lime and sugar made this pre-Prohibition classic an excellent solution for the rum that flowed into the US post-Noble Experiment. The version we served with Cruzan Aged Light Rum (from nearby St. Croix) were a hit with the fashionable ladies who attended the BCAE event. Pop on a pillbox hat and mix up one of these at home

DAIQUIRI

2 oz Cruzan Aged Light Rum

0.5 oz fresh lime juice

0.5 oz simple syrup

Shake and strain into a coupe.

CIN-CIN!

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