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Posts Tagged ‘Oloroso Sherry’

The Badass New Cocktail List at Clio

Posted in Weekly Dig, tagged , , , , on April 21, 2010| 7 Comments »

Recent thoughts from LUPEC Boston, in case you missed ’em in this week’s Dig.

by Pink Lady + Contessa

We extolled the virtues of Clio/Uni‘s secret/awesome cocktail program a few weeks ago in our hotel bar roundup. Little did we know that barman Todd Maul was developing a brand new cocktail menu, unveiled earlier this month. Weighing in with 80-plus libations, the ambitious menu rivals any other craft cocktail bastion’s and evokes the legendary “long list” at one of our other favorite watering holes, Green Street. How long will it take us to drink our way through this menu? Don’t tempt us.

The slim but potent, elegantly designed volume is cinched with a gold silk cord. Drinks run the gamut, from aperitifs ($9) to drinks for two ($25) to tiki drinks & daiquiris ($13), and feature a blend of pre-Prohibition and modern classics. Gin gets its own section, as does whiskey & cognac, with several pages of “other stuff” sandwiched between and “the stuff that didn’t fit anywhere else” on the last page (these will all run you $13). Old-school spirits ads are sprinkled throughout, like in our cherished vintage cocktail books; the effect as you leaf through it is more akin to reading a retro recipe pamphlet than selecting a beverage at a Back Bay bar.

On a recent outing, LUPEC emeritus Contessa was delighted to find drinks built around a house-made orange gin created with Seville oranges and Old Tom as base. She liked the Flying Dutchman, which mixes orange gin with orange juice, lemon and bitters, and pairs perfectly with rock shrimp and fish tacos. (Fish tacos at Clio? Who knew? And yes, they’re spectacular.) Maul assures us that many of these beverages (like the trendy tiki drinks) were designed with Uni’s raw seafood offerings in mind.

For a drink you won’t have to duck into the Clio bar to sample, we suggest an original that debuted on the new list, the Southern Beaches. Maul considers cachaça an under-utilized spirit, often relegated to caipirinhas and … well, that’s it. He puts it to work in a classic tiki formula here.

But seriously: How long do you think it will take us to drink our way through the list?

SOUTHERN BEACHES

1.5 oz Beija cachaça
0.5 oz fresh lime juice
0.25 oz Oloroso sherry
0.25 oz Orgeat
0.25 oz Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot liqueur

Shake ingredients with ice; strain over ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with an orange slice, a lime twist and ground allspice.

CIN-CIN!

FOR MORE GREAT COCKTAIL RECIPES, VISIT LUPECBOSTON.COM.

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What We’re Drinking: A New-Old Spin On Eggnog*

Posted in Weekly Dig, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2009| 4 Comments »

*The latest ruminations from LUPEC Boston, in case you missed ‘em in the Dig.

by Pink Lady

Eggs in cocktails? Why yes, of course. You couldn’t make flips or fizzes any other way. But for the uninitiated, mixing raw egg in a drink always prompts shock and awe … unless we’re talking about eggnog. And wherever you stand on the issue, eggnog is probably already part of your holiday tradition.

In the early days of our nation, drinks made with raw eggs were a common quaff. The colonial-era mixture of ale, rum, eggs and sugar passed back and forth in pitchers and dubbed a “flip,” for example, was a veritable fixture of day-to-day drinking. As with most early tipples, these drinks changed over time, shrank in size and morphed into a beverage made to order and tailored to individual taste. By the mid-1850s, egg drinks were less common for day to day, but remained a key component for yuletide imbibing. Today, eggnog is one of the only raw egg drinks you can recommend that won’t prompt an “ew” when you suggest it to the neophyte.

Early recipes for eggnog blended cognac, dark rum, a whole egg, milk and freshly grated nutmeg, and unless you’re buying cartons of Hood-brand prefabricated stuff, this is probably the very recipe you use. Thus, eggnog in this form is hardly an “endangered cocktail.” Another popular variation substituted fortified wine for the hooch, as printed in the 1862 volume of Jerry Thomas’ How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon Vivant’s Companion.

Made with Oloroso sherry in place of cognac and rum, Jerry Thomas’ sherry eggnog is such a delight we suggest bringing it back to wow your family and friends this week. Unless, of course, you require the high-test original to get through holidays with the fam’. In that case, bottom’s up and godspeed.

SHERRY EGGNOG

ADAPTED FROM HOW TO MIX DRINKS, OR THE BON VIVANT’S COMPANION BY JERRY THOMAS

4 oz Oloroso sherry
yolk of one egg
1 oz simple syrup
milk

Combine sherry, simple syrup and egg yolk in shaker and shake (without ice) for about 10 seconds to emulsify. Add ice and shake again for a very long time. Strain into an ice-filled 10-ounce tall glass and top with milk. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

CIN-CIN!

LET PINK LADY SHOW YOU HOW TO MAKE THIS CLASSIC – VISIT HOW2HEROES.COM. FOR MORE GREAT YULETIDE COCKTAILS, VISIT LUPECBOSTON.COM.

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