Derby Day is this Saturday, which means one thing… mint juleps. Unfortunately I’ll be away this weekend, so won’t be able to take advantage of the warm weather and my friend Rebecca’s pewter julep cups to celebrate in style.

Mint Julep

simple sugar syrup
4-5 sprigs mint
bourbon
shaved ice (think Sno-Cone fine)

Pour about 1/4 inch of syrup into bottom of a julep cup or small tumbler. Muddle all but one sprig of mint with muddler or wooden spoon, releasing fragrance of mint into sugar. Add ice, then fill with bourbon. Stir several times until frost forms on side of cup/glass.

For the uninitiated, though, the julep is a tricky and often unpalatable cocktail. Not many people will go for a drink that starts out octane-strong at the start and ends up watery at the finish. Muddling the mint can either release the herb’s fragrance or turn the drink to a grassy swamp. And shaved – or at least highly crushed – ice is necessary to get the proper frostiness on the glass. And you gotta like bourbon, cause that’s most of the drink.

Fortunately, my friend Dave, another ex-Southerner, wrote me with his solution: a hybrid julep-mojito.

I had a julep last year at the Kentucky derby and it made me sleepy and listless. So…I adapted a mojito recipe which I like. Just substituted bourbon. Specifically, bullet bourbon, a “top shelf” bourbon marketed by Jim Beam or somebody. Very smooth, doesn’t feel like acid reflux.

You prepare a mint simple syrup (1 C sugar, 1 C water, sprigs of mint, boiled and cooled). Bruise mint with ice in a glass, mix syrup with club soda with bourbon. Voila/yee-ha, it’s a julep.

Maybe the traditionalists will shudder at the straightforward highball treatment, but for those put off by the complications of a julep or those who are on the edge about bourbon, it seems a reasonable compromise.

I’ve not had Bullet bourbon yet. I can say Maker’s Mark is great in juleps; essentially anything that’s good quality and 80 proof strikes a nice balance. I save the 100 proof stuff for sipping.

I’d never had domestic applejack, just French calvados, but Ted Haigh’s book is positively bullish on it, and a number of mixologists seem smitten with the Jack Rose, a Prohibition-era cocktail featuring the spirit. So seeing that I could pick up a bottle of Laird’s at Cirace’s for less than fifteen bucks, I couldn’t resist.

Consumed straight, I like calvados far better – it has more a mellow brandy taste rather than applejack’s 80 proof whiskey-like kick. But I’d heartily recommend applejack for cocktails: it’s spirit first and fruitiness second and holds up to strong ingredients.

Take the increasingly famous Jack Rose. A simple applejack sour (with lemon or lime), it’s offset with the sweetness and color of grenadine.

Jack Rose Cocktail

1 jigger domestic applejack
juice of 1/2 lime or lemon
2 dashes grenadine

Shake well and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime/lemon wedge.

At first blush it seems like a frou-frou drink, pink and sweet. But a couple sips into it, you’ll be struck by the complexity. At least I was. Cocktail aficionados insist on a good quality grenadine like Angostura or Fee Brothers brand, but I’ve combed most of the liquor stores in Boston and have yet to see anything other than Rose’s grenadine. Perhaps with the right stuff, the drink would be sublime; with Rose’s, though, it was sufficiently tasty.

Or, if you’re looking for something stronger and not-so-fruity, I flipped through the Trader Vic’s guide and found an Applejack Cocktail that’s equal parts applejack and Italian vermouth. Again using the very strongly flavored Punt e Mes, the result was too bitter and disharmonious for my tastes, so I doubled the proportion of applejack in the recipe. Much better.

Applejack Cocktail

1 jigger domestic applejack
1/2 jigger Italian vermouth

Shake and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

Too outré? Applejack works well in a highball, with some ginger ale, ice and a lemon wedge. Not bad for cheap hooch.

Laird’s Applejack can be found Cirace and Sons Liquors, 173 North Street, North End and Beacon Hill Wine and Spirits, 63 Charles Street, among other stores.

Cross-town blogger Mike tried to find out as he enrolled in Boston Bartending School last week. Go read his experience. It sounds like he was pleased in balance.

I actually attended bartending school early in my graduate school days when I thought it might be a good part time means of employment. I ended up disappointed. Bartending in Boston is pretty much a closed shop, and, what’s more, most bartenders seem to come up from other avenues within the food and hospitality industry, not from bartending school. It makes sense, and I was naïve to think I’d waltz in from the street into a bartending job… still, I think a lot of people are similarly naïve and the bartending schools play on that, promising “job placement” and listings that amount to little more than catering gigs with their in-house service. Unlike a true professional school that limits the credentials, bartending school multiplies the number of people with them.

At best the schools serve as preparation for seasonal employment and nightclub bartending (though in Boston, that’s presumably a closed shop, too). With the exception of the martini, none of the drinks were presented with the idea that quality matters, or that some combinations of liquor are more fortuitous than others. We were taught sour mix margaritas (my bete noire). And lots of shooters. And we used only colored water, which makes sense economically, but frankly doesn’t give you a sense of how ingredients mix, much less taste.

The good things about bartending school, or at least my experience of it: learning how to free pour, and learning drink recipes beyond what one normally drinks. And I’m sure others had much more positive experiences and outcomes. And I’m aware that more intensive mixology programs have popped up. I’d be curious to see what they teach.

I’m going to have to punt a bit on this Mixology Monday. I didn’t get around to experimenting with anise or to shopping for some true French pastis, so I don’t have much more to add from my recent post on anise liqueur. In general, I’m still learning to acquire the taste. To that end, I find that citrus helps cut the sugary sweetness. A lot. If you can’t find the limon dulce I referenced before, here’s a simple drink to make with readily available ingredients:

Anise Rickey

1 jigger anise liqueur (I used ouzo)
juice of one lime
Club soda

Fill highball glass with ice. Squeeze in lime and add liqueur. Top with club soda and garnish with lime wedge.

Unorthodox maybe, but not bad. I’m more eager, however, to try the more exciting offerings of the fellow mixologists. And that Henri Bardouin sounds amazing, even if I am a sucker for Ricard’s image and packaging.

As a restaurant bar, Stella’s, on the edge of Blackstone Park in the South End, is in many ways ideal. There’s enough room in their front area to accommodate destination bar patrons, and on Tuesday night the mostly gay clientele filled the area. The bartenders are friendly, and the crowd has a real neighborhood camaraderie to it.

Some would praise the scene and the decor, but I found it too LA in spirit. Lots of off-white Corian surfaces and beige fabrics; heat lamps outdoors for those wanting to pretend we’re living in a warm climate; and half the bar patrons chatting away on their cell phones. Rather than have a full-stocked bar, the powers that be had put long glass shelves with underlighting to feature brand name bottles of vodka, whiskey, etc. It’s a mentality inherited from the 80s (let’s call it Absolutism) that prefers conspicuous consumption over quality; I find it affected and antithetical to fine drinking.

Given the limited stock of the bar, I went simple in my order and got a gimlet. The prices were reasonable for Boston ($7.50 for Bombay gin cocktail, $9.50 for top shelf). Unfortunately, the bartender made it with sour mix instead of strictly Rose’s lime. Bleh. To his credit he noticed a mint sprig floating in the drink and remade it, with a complimentary upgrade of liquor (what’s up with stray mint leaves these days?), but that didn’t save an unappetizing gimlet. The manhattans were better, but with too much of an unrounded bite, I’d put it in the OK rather than great category.

The affectations cut across other areas, too. Stella’s used a tub of crushed ice to chill the cocktails glasses, putting them top down in the ice until they needed one. Great idea, I thought, until I saw them pull glass after glass out, large bits of wet ice clinging to the inside of the glass and watering the cocktails down. The glasses didn’t even seem all that cold for all that fuss.

It seems that Stella’s has some atmosphere going for it, but is trying way too hard. Like the reviews that call the area SoWa, even though Stella’s is clearly north of Washington.

Stella’s is located at 1525 Washington St., in the South End.

If you’re in Massachusetts, tomorrow is Tax Day, which means it’s time to whip up those Income Tax Cocktails. As Rick pointed out in the comments to my post on the Bronx Cocktail, the Income Tax Cocktail is a Bronx with bitters added. Actually, I sometimes prefer a drier Bronx (i.e. more gin) but always enjoy the vermouth-heavy Income Tax Cocktail as traditionally made. I first saw it in the Savoy Cocktail Book (above). Here’s Ted Haigh’s transcription:

Income Tax Cocktail

1 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger dry vermouth
1/2 jigger sweet vermouth
juice of 1/4 orange, squeezed directly into shaker
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake in iced cocktail shaker and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange wheel.

Some friends gave me as a present Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Fantastic book. What’s remarkable is Haigh’s research – how to obtain those ingredients for vintage drinks, what liquors have changed their recipe over the years, or what obscure terms like gomme syrup refer to. It’s a must have, though less as a bartending guide or reference for recipes than for a sensibility. It’s as much about bringing quality of spirits back as reviving forgotten recipes.

One thing that struck me was his manifesto in the opening. After lamenting the lack of knowledge among (most) professional bartenders, he writes:

We, as modern consumers, also still have some work to do. As a culture, we are quickly forgetting how to gain acquired tastes. If something taste bitter or sharp it is bypassed for an easier-to-contemplate taste sensation. The majority of modern drinks are designed to utterly hide any tang of alcohol, much less the sharp piquant acquired taste of gin – and it’s not just gin we’re talking about either. It’s brandy, whiskey, and tequila, too.

One of the major beefs I have – you may already have noticed – is the stifling fashion these days for clear, sweet vodka cocktails. It’s not simply my purism about what gets called a martini. And it’s not a snobbery about fruit or sweetness per se. The reason I detest this trend is that it treats spirits as simply a neutral basis for whatever flavor, natural or artificial, people want to toss in.

What gets lost are the spirits themselves. Consider the range of flavors and qualities that spirits at their best bring to the cocktail:

• Body: Brandy, whiskey, and aged rum all have a warmth and mellowness. Isaac at DC Drinks explains: it’s the oak aging. “While it’s a normal part of developing the drinker’s palate to start with the colorless and odorless stuff,” he writes, “once you’ve had a taste of the complexity imbued by oak its hard to return to the watery, clear substances.”
• Herbal notes: I wouldn’t go as far as Isaac in eschewing all clear liquors. Gin is probably my favorite basic spirit; it’s highly distilled, but I love its dryness and its juniper flavor. It never ceases to surprise me in its ability to support other flavors in a cocktail. Liqueurs like Chartreuse or amaro have the complexity of oak-aged bourbon, just not its mellowness. Pimm’s even simulates the color and body of an aged spirit despite being made from gin.
• Complexity: Even fruit liqueurs gain from well-crafted production. Whereas cheap liqueur and even infusion can reduce fruit flavors to a two-dimensional axis of sugar and acidity, a good fruit-based spirit is a reminder that fruit flavors are more than sweet and tart. Some, like Cointreau, give a whole bouquet of aroma to what would otherwise be simply “orange” flavor. Others, like maraschino liqueur, take the fruit into unexpected directions.

Why should one bother going through the trouble to acquire tastes? Because it lets you enjoy the taste of the spirits instead of covering them up. Because drinking for the flavor can be a part of drinking more moderately; as Haigh notes, the oversized cocktail came part and parcel with the neutral spirits trend. Because an inspired flavor combination, made with quality ingredients, is more sophisticated than something which needs the special glass to tart it up.

Of course, even with effort, not all tastes can be acquired. No matter how I try Fernet-Branca - with tons of soda, smothered in lemon; mixed with other amaro; or in some vintage Fernet-Branca cocktail - well it still tastes awful to me. But for every Fernet-Brance, there’s a maraschino liqueur or a Campari… something that’s odd or offputting at first but that soon I grow to love.

Today I went to an Easter brunch, and the hosts were serving bellinis. It wasn’t the first time I had the drink – essentially a mimosa with fruit nectar, traditionally peach, instead of orange juice – but today it really hit the spot and seemed fitting for a spring brunch. It’s definitely a nice change of pace if mimosas seem too tired or predictable.

I’m never a fan of peach flavored stuff that’s not actually fresh peach – and I’m sure it’s just divine with fresh peach juice – but they were using a Goya peach nectar that was quite good and made an excellent drink. You can try other nectars, too… guava, apricot, pear, mango, or whatever you fancy. As always, avoid the misnamed extra-dry champagne, which is just too sweet.

Bellini

1/3 champagne flute filled with peach juice or peach nectar
2/3 flute topped with champagne or sparkling wine

As my friends know, I like to have a drink of the season. Something that captures my mood and complements the climate. Maybe even that uses seasonal ingredients. A drink for which I can have the ingredients on hand for company or for myself.

Well, after my trip to B Side, the drink of spring for me is the Last Word. Its fruity-dry balance, its pale green color, its perfect alchemy that needs no garnish: I can’t think of a better spring cocktail. It was popular among my friends too, who couldn’t remember the cocktail name so kept calling it the L Word.

It’s not in most guidebooks, even the encyclopedic Trader Vic’s. Thankfully, Paul at Cocktail Chronicles comes to the rescue. I urge you to go read his post for the history of this long-forgotten Prohibition-era drink (that’s half the fun), but for convenience I’ll reproduce the recipe:

The Last Word

1/2 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger maraschino liqueur
1/2 jigger green Chartreuse
1/2 jigger fresh lime juice

Put ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

I only see a couple of drawbacks. First, some people don’t like Chartreuse. I love the stuff myself and have a hard time keeping a bottle around, I like it on the rocks so much. But to some, the herbal flavors will remind them of a Ricola cough drop. To them, I’ll just say that in the Last Word, the interplay holds everything in balance; like a Long Island Ice Tea, you don’t so much taste the individual liquors, as the sum is greater than the parts.

Then there’s the ingredients: maraschino liqueur isn’t too cheap and can be a pain to find; and Chartreuse is expensive, often topping forty dollars a bottle, though Martignetti’s currently stocks it for 34 bucks. If you’re unsure about committing to the liquor, or are leery of odd-tasting liqueurs, go try a Last Word at B-Side for a test run. I predict that many of you, even the gin-haters, will fall in love with this one.

I continue to be impressed and humbled by the other cocktail sites I stumble across.

• Darcy at The Art of Drink has a rundown of some sites; check out his post, too, on Drinks Bartenders Hate to Make.
• Rick’s Kaiser Penguin has been posting an incredible series on tiki drinks.
• Bar Mix-Master has been quiet lately but has great stuff in the archives.

Paul of Cocktail Chronicles surveys the growth of cocktail blogging and proposes a blog carnival, i.e. a day of posts devoted to a given topic. So he’s instituted Mixology Monday, the first one which will take place on April 24, on the topic of pastis, anise liqueur. As Darcy of TAoD explains,

“Mixology Monday”… is based on other weblog community projects like “Is My Blog Burning?” and “Wine Blogging Wednesday”. The basic idea is that anyone interested can write an article on the selected topic (this week it’s Pastis, i.e. anise flavour) and publish it to their blog. You don’t even need to have a cocktail related weblog, nor does the topic need to be about drinking the selected product. It can be about your bad experiences in college, your good experiences while travelling through France, or how you used it in a pudding recipe. After you’ve published your article, you email the topic host and they will publish a list of participants on their blog. Make sure you put a link in your post to the hosting weblog so people can jump in on any discussion.

He’s even concocted a terrific logo:

Mike, of Days that End in Y, has a general drinks-related blog carnival planned, which I’ll have more details on as I find out (or check out the initial post). I look forward to the vibrant online discussion on fine drinking.