It’s that time of the year, when my well-windowed apartment gets really cold and I have to bring out multiple space heaters to supplement the un-strategically placed central heater that seems to whisper lukewarm puffs of air. Luckily, my Zojirushi water boiler and warmer just arrived in the mail and I will have a steady supply of hot water.

Tea is my year-round choice for a hot beverage. My favorite teas for this year are bancha from Japan and jasmine tea from Taiwan. Both are really gentle on my stomach. So much so, that I can drink either first thing in the morning.

But when winter time comes around, I am desperate for a caffeine-free option — a hot beverage that I can have at 11:30pm without worrying about if I will be able to sleep thirty minutes later. Enter the yuzu.

This year seems to be a great year for yuzu trees in the Bay Area. Both my mom and sister’s trees are busting with fruit. The rinds are colored to perfection, not quite as bright as a lemon but not at all green. For my caffeine-free drink, I thought I’d make use of the bounty of winter and use the zest of a yuzu, grated ginger and a dollop of honey.

INGREDIENTS
1 or 2 small zest shavings of yuzu
1 tsp of freshly grated ginger
1 tsp of honey

1. Drop the zest and ginger into your tea pot.

2. Add hot water.

3. Steep for 4-5 minutes.

4. Pour tea into your cup and add honey.

After a few sips, my body is so warm that I forget about how my “central heating” is blowing thin slivers of lukewarm air.

TIP: Since you only use a little bit of the yuzu at a time for this, you can wrap your yuzu tightly in saran wrap and freeze it. The next time you make this, you can take the yuzu out of the freezer and shave off another piece of rind.

Being out of the country for nearly a month has a tendency to adjust a person’s perspective of “home.” Home has had various meanings and geographical locations in various moments in my life. Conceptually, it means numerous–and sometimes conflicting–things at one time, and all this really came to light on my recent trip to Iran. Depending on how the question is asked, for me home can either mean Iran (where I was born), Los Angeles (where I grew up), or New York City (where I now live).

In the final days of my trip, it was the lattermost of the three homes that was most on my mind. I once heard someone refer to NYC as the great Roman Carnival, a place where the spectacle is ordinary, and even if the spectacle is unsightly, it’s one you can’t walk away from. The rat on the subway track may as well be the city’s mascot, because it so neatly encapsulates the love-hate relationship many residents feel toward this city: that even those disgusted by it are unable to turn their eyes from it. Those who live, or have ever lived, in this city for a significant amount of time might understand what I’m referring to.

On my flight home I felt as if all that I loved and hated about NYC was rolled up in one great tangled ball of string. Below is my attempt at untangling that ball.

Good Morning Heartache
1 1/2 oz Gin (Beefeater 24 is ideal because of its tea botanicals)
3/4 oz fresh tangerine juice (I used honey tangerines)
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz lapsang-honey syrup (see recipe below)
1/2 oz egg white (organic farm fresh eggs)
6 dashes Bar Keep Baked Apple Bitters

Garnish: small pinch lapsang souchong tea leaves, heated 20 seconds in microwave
Tools: shaker, strainer
Glass: chilled coupe or cocktail glass

Add the gin, egg white, and honey syrup to a cocktail shaker and dry shake (without ice) vigorously for 15 seconds to emulsify and froth the egg. Add the remaining ingredients along with lots of cracked ice and shake again until the drink is well mixed and chilled, about 10 seconds or so. Strain into your glass and garnish by adding atop the drink a pinch of dried lapsang souchong tea leaves that have been heated in the microwave for 20 seconds.

Lapsang-Honey Syrup
In a small pot bring one cup water to a boil. After water boils, turn off heat and add five teaspoons lapsang souchong tea leaves and allow the tea to steep for five minutes. Make sure tea leaves are submerged in the water and stir every minute or so to ensure teas give off maximum flavor. After five minutes strain out the tea leaves and discard. To the remaining tea add an equal amount of honey and stir to fully dissolve. You now have a smoky, sweet syrup that’s ready to use in the cocktail.

+++

Good Morning Heartache is my ode to all that is New York City–it’s good, bad, pretty, and ugly. Now judging by the way this cocktail looks and tastes, it’s clear I have more love than hate for this city. That’s because to me, even the ugly in this city is pretty, if not altogether more beautiful than the pretty itself. When I went about creating the recipe I wanted to represent that, and I tried to create something that engaged multiple senses.

This cocktail is inspired by couple of things that are unique to this city. First, it is an homage to old New York, the city we think of when we describe the great Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age. Those of you familiar with that era will instantly recognize that the name of the cocktail comes from a classic Billy Holiday song.

There are few people I can think of who better represent that era than Lady Day, as she lived and breathed the city in so much of her music. Although I’ve never heard the song Good Morning Heartache officially interpreted in this way, I’ve always thought it was an extended metaphor for New York City; that the lover she’s singing to in the morning, the one that she can’t stand to be apart from despite the grief he’s caused her, is the city itself. And in that sense the song was the perfect name for this drink.

I also wanted to invoke this theme by engaging the senses, and I did so via the various ingredients I used, such as the lapsang-honey syrup. Imagine if you will the sweet voice of Billie Holiday in a smoke-filled Harlem nightclub in the 1930s—that was a big inspiration for combining the smoky lapsang tea with the honey, and also why I use the heated dried tea leaves as a garnish atop the drink. Not only do you get a sweet smoky sensation on the palate, but also on the nose as the aroma wafts above the drink.

Secondly, this cocktail is inspired by a classic New York tradition, brunch. Sure other cities have brunch, but in New York brunch is a religion.  It is the city that turned the word brunch into a verb. The cocktail not only represents that in its name, but also in its ingredients. Tea, honey, tangerine juice, and egg, are all items you’d find at a traditional brunch table. This cocktail, as the sum of those parts, is also intended to be right at home on the brunch table.

Here’s to the beautiful decay that is home.

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below.

The Prohibition Era figures prominently in the collective imagination of the cocktail world. The aura and mystique surrounding that era still wields great influence on popular culture. The popularity of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is a perfect example of our still not fully reconciled fascination with that period, as is the proliferation of modern “speakeasies” in New York and across the country. Yet despite this nostalgic intrigue, most of us have no idea what it’s like to live under prohibition.

Recently I had the opportunity to have such an experience, as I traveled to Iran for a cousin’s wedding. As many of you know, alcohol is prohibited in Iran, but that doesn’t mean people don’t find a way to get their drink on, as we sure enough did.

Breakfast of champions: grilled lamb chops, liver, heart, and lung on the roof of my cousin’s house.

A street food vendor fanning the grill, atop which sits skewers of lamb liver. Street food in the U.S. rarely gets this good.

The wedding was in a city called Saravan, a very rural city in the southeastern region of Iran known as Baluchistan. The name Baluchistan means “land of the Baluch people,” the ethnic minority who have inhabited the area for hundreds of years.

The Baluchistan region spans across southeastern Iran, northwestern Pakistan, and southern Afghanistan.

Regional map, with Baluchistan in Pink

The area is also a veritable desert, though dates grow abound from the many palm trees dotting the region. In fact, some of the best, juiciest dates in the world come from this region.

Since my cousin was marrying a Baluchi girl, he was having a traditional Baluchi wedding, the traditions of which were unfamiliar to myself and other members of my family (who are of Persian, not Baluchi ethnicity). My cousin, however is half Baluchi, so this was no sweat for him. As a matter of fact his grandfather was the Baluchi king of the region in his day, with grand castle and all.

The view of the town below from one of the rooms midway up the castle. The castle itself is at least 500 years old and is now a national historic site.

Henna tattoos are a common tradition at weddings in this region.

So this wedding was a big deal for a lot of people in the area–and by a lot, practically everyone. In its entirety, the wedding was a three day affair, with extravagant lunches and dinners offered on each day. To give you a sense of how extravagant, on one evening 20 goats were freshly slaughtered and smoked as part of the main dinner offering. Every day it seemed the entire town had gathered to be fed.

In America, the open bar is at least half the motivation for attending a wedding. Obviously expectations are not the same in a country like Iran where liquor is prohibited. Going dry for one wedding is bad enough, let alone a three day wedding.

A three day wedding with no bar? Ok, I can adjust my expectations and make the best of it, I figured. What I didn’t anticipate, however, was that for almost every aspect of three day affair, including the lunches, dinners, tea, and dancing portions, the men and women would be in separate areas.

So traditional was this wedding that the men (including the groom, I believe) didn’t get to see the bride until the morning after the third day. The picture of the bride below was taken by my mom, because the guys weren’t even privy to this.

No alcohol, no problem, but kickin’ it sober with a bunch of dudes? Oh man, this situation needed some amelioration.

Fortunately one of my cousins (I have too many to count, but suffice it to say it wasn’t the one getting married–thankfully, because that would be a disaster in waiting) felt the same way as I did, and even more fortunate was the fact that he knew a thing or two about amelioration, if you know what I mean. So he decides to score some liquor before the wedding, and asked if I wanted to come along. Naturally, I did.

We went to the local bazaar, where he knew a guy who sells textiles and cloth by the meter, but also comes across some hooch from time to time. After several minutes of shooting the obligatory shit, we end up with a packaged pouch of liquid that read “Scotch Whiskey.” I was instantly skeptical, but it wasn’t as if I was going to call the Better Business Bureau, so we had to take what we could get.

When we got back to his kitchen I busted it open and confirmed what I already knew, that it wasn’t Scotch, and it most certainly wasn’t whiskey. It was nothing more than clear, high proof bootleg alcohol. Thus my cousin received his first lesson in spirits: it ain’t whiskey unless it’s brown.

We needed to figure out a way to make this drink go down, so we began looking for mixing ingredients, and thus began my cousin’s second lesson: how to make a balanced cocktail… in any circumstance.

We found sour cherry juice, lemons, and honey, and with a little tinkering I came up with something that was not only palatable, but actually tasted good. We found a mason jar with a lid and turned it into a makeshift shaker. I then proceeded to give them the cocktail of their lives (they’d never had a cocktail before so this was easy)–call me the Mcgyver of mixology.

I call this drink The Desert Ain’t That Dry, an actual prohibition-era cocktail you could say!

The Desert Ain’t That Dry
2 oz Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon
1 1/4 oz sour cherry juice
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/4 oz honey

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a glass. No garnish necessary. We don’t bother with garnishes during prohibition.

In the spirit of bootlegging I used a marketed moonshine such as Junior Johnson’s, made by Piedmont Distillers in North Carolina. But you can certainly use any other brand of corn or grain alcohol, including vodka. However if you are going to use vodka I recommend using one that still has some character and flavor retained in the distillate, such as Purity from Sweden.

As for the sour cherry juice, be aware that you may have to adjust the amount of honey from the recipe depending on how sweet the juice is. Some brands are pure sour cherry juice (more tart) and some are marketed as “nectars,” which means they have added sugar and possibly water to tone down the tartness, and are thus sweeter. In Iran I used a rather tart variety with little sweetness, but here all I could find was the nectar variety with added sugar, so I had to tone down the honey significantly.

Speaking of honey, you can either use straight honey, or to make it more easily dilutable, you can make honey syrup by mixing equal parts honey and warm water until fully dissolved. The recipe above is for straight undiluted honey, so double it if using honey syrup.

Here’s to repeal!

*I’d like to express an immense amount of heartfelt gratitude to Fredo Ceraso of the lifestyle blog Loungerati for tending bar for the past several weeks while I was away.

**Got a cocktail question? Reach me on twitter @Paystyle, email me at info(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

Last week I wrote about the Hot Buttered Rum, and how it’s a winter drink for when you’re feeling festive (and when you’ve planned far enough ahead of time and made the essential spiced rum batter). Now that we’re nearing the dead of winter, you may be interested in something more simple– a drink that doesn’t require much advanced preparation. For these moments, the Hot Toddy shines (and warms) like no other.

Technically speaking, a toddy is a category of drinks rather than a specific recipe and the Hot Toddy is simply, well, the hot version of a regular toddy. In the old days a tavern keeper would heat the drink by taking a hot metal poker from the fire and plunge it into the pot that contained the mixture. So yes, originally, in less frigid times toddies were served at room temperature except for the very rare instance when ice was handy (we’re talking about 18th century and prior).

The name of the drink comes from the term ‘toddy stick,’ which was the big wooden baton-like tool the barkeep would use to break up sugar, as well as muddle any spice and everything nice, and even crack ice, when it became a commonly used item. Sugar of course had to be broken up because during colonial times it came in hard loaves that needed to be chipped into smaller usable pieces. The luxury of nicely granulated sugar that we find in the stores today was not to be had back then.

Understanding the toddy as a category, or better yet a concept, will enable you to use its template as a base for creating something uniquely your own, simplifying (or complicating) it as you see fit. There is no universally recognized toddy recipe, yet all good toddies will have the same components: a base spirit (traditionally whiskey but any brown–i.e. oak-aged–spirit will do, with genever being the allowable exception); a sweetening agent (sugar, honey, whatever); a diluting agent (hot water, tea, cider); and lemon juice for a necessary acidic bump to bring all the flavors in balance. Beyond that you can muddle lemon or other citrus peels, add cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, oregano– ok maybe we’re getting carried away now.

Below are two recipes that exemplify this approach. The first is a basic toddy that any tavern with the ability to boil water should be able to turn out, and the other is a Jasmine Toddy (pictured above) that’s a touch more complex but well worth it for the final product it yields.

Hot Toddy
1 oz whiskey
1 oz honey syrup (equal parts honey and water pre-diluted for easy mixing)
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
boiling water (about 3-4 oz depending on glass size)

Pour the honey syrup, lemon juice, and whiskey in a heated hot toddy glass or mug and stir to dissolve. Top with boiling water and enjoy. If you choose to use straight undiluted honey, only use half the suggested amount.

Just as it’s important to pre-chill a glass when making a cold drink, it ‘s a good idea to pre-heat your glass when making  a hot one. You can do this by simply pouring boiling water in your glass and letting it sit until you get the rest of your ingredients together, then pouring it out once you’re ready to assemble the drink. And because the water (or other diluting agent) is the only hot element of this drink, I make sure it’s boiling (as opposed to just being hot) when I add it, otherwise the rest of the ingredients will quickly bring down the temperature, which would yield a Tepid Toddy, not a Hot Toddy.

Jasmine Toddy
1/2 oz Yamazaki 12 Yr
1/2 oz Rhum Barbancourt 4 Yr (or other lightly aged rhum agricole)
1 oz honey syrup
1/2 oz variegated pink lemon juice (just use regular lemon juice; I’m being fancy-schmancy cuz that’s what was in my CSA this week)
Fresh brewed jasmine green tea (approx 3-4 oz; Ahmad Tea makes a pretty good one)
half lemon wheel studded with 3 cloves

Pour the honey syrup, lemon juice, and spirits in a heated glass and stir to dissolve. Add the clove-studded lemon. Pour in the jasmine green tea and enjoy.

The floral nose and mildly sweet palate of the Yamazaki Japanese whisky makes it a great pairing with the lightly oaked yet still grassy undertone of the Haitian rum, and together provide a nice base of complexity and body despite the relatively low amount of liquor in the drink.

I used variegated pink lemons simply because I had them on hand, and aside from the aesthetically pleasing aspect of the pink lemons, they’re also a bit more tart and have a stronger flavor than their yellow cousins. But if I didn’t have them I’d just use regular lemons because there’s no sense in venturing back into the cold to track them down. That would certainly defeat the entire purpose of this enterprise.

You’ll notice that both toddy recipes adhere to a similar formula, and both check off the necessary components, yet they vary widely in flavor profile. That’s the beauty of a good hot toddy, because it’s made of stuff almost everyone either has in stock or can easily attain. If you don’t have whiskey you can use aged rum; if you don’t have honey you can use sugar; if you don’t have… you get the point.

Winter ain’t got nothin’ on you now kid!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

Halloween’s only a few days away and many of you still haven’t bought or made your costume, or worst yet, haven’t even figured out what you’ll be dressing up as.  Unfortunately I can’t help you in that department. However where I can be of assistance is in figuring out what to serve at your party–or what to pre-party with if you’re not throwing a bash of your own.  If you’re still in search of your Halloween cocktail, then keep reading.

Admittedly, I’ve never been really good at–nor really fond of–making Halloween-themed cocktails. I’ve always had difficulty getting past the high kitsch factor. Now I know kitsch isn’t always a bad thing, especially when done smartly and with a moderate hand, but perhaps it’s been my lack of creativity that’s often made it a difficult hurdle.  This has been especially true when the creative impulse favors appearance over flavor and quality; when ingredients are chosen not so much for what they contribute to the flavor or aroma of a drink, but for their particular color or other attribute that helps the drink’s appearance fit within the event’s theme.  In the case of Halloween, it becomes critical for the drink’s name and/or appearance to reference something ghoulish, frightening, or what have you. So you often wind up with drinks made with crap ingredients like Midori because they’ll make the drink green to reference a monster or a witch or Frankenstein or whatever.

That said, it’s not always a choice of extremes, and there are always instances when one comes across a cocktail that hits the trifecta of flavor, appearance, and name dead on while staying in character and true to theme at hand.  This year, that drink is the Blood and Tears. It’s not a creation of mine, but rather a friend of mine and bartender Brian Matthys, a man who wins cocktail competitions left and right without the use of performance enhancing drugs.  One look at the ingredient list of this cocktail and you can see why. Below is the recipe, and the ingredients in italics are simply my own additions which I feel add a touch more depth and texture to the drink. Try them both ways to see which better suits your palate.

Blood and Tears
2 oz DonQ Gran Anejo rum
2 oz horchata (recipe below)
1/2 oz honey syrup (mix equal parts honey and hot water)
1/4 oz fresh lime juice
1 egg white (small egg is sufficient)
2  1/2 tbsp diced red bell pepper
2 small diced pieces habanero pepper
Peychaud’s bitters
pinch of cinnamon

Tools: shaker, strainer, muddler
Glass: chilled cocktail glass

In a cocktail shaker, add the peppers and honey syrup and muddle. Then add the rum, horchata, and optionally, the lime juice and egg white along with ice. Shake vigorously until your fingers are bloody and you’re in tears.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, then add a few drops of Peychaud’s bitters on top to give it that bloody effect, as well as a small pinch of ground cinnamon.  When using egg white, some like to do a dry shake (shaking ingredients without ice) to help it emulsify before adding the ice and shaking again to chill the drink. Also, because of the little pepper pieces in this drink, I like to double strain the drink using a fine strainer like a tea strainer to catch all those little bits.

Horchata (yields 3 quarts)
2 cups white rice
1 cup orgeat (I used Trader Tiki brand, but you can learn to make your own here)
1/3 cup almonds
1/3 cup cinnamon syrup (used Trader Tiki)
1 tsp rosewater

Place the rice in a container along with 4 cups water and cover and allow it to soak for at least 12 hours. In a separate container, place the almonds with 1 cup water and allow that to soak, covered, for same amount of time. Drain the rice and grind it as fine as possible. Drain and peel the almonds, then grind them the same way. Mix the rice with 2 quarts water and pass it through a fine sieve or cheesecloth into a 1 gallon container. Mix the almonds with 1 quart of water and fine strain it like the rice, into the same container. Add the orgeat, cinnamon syrup, and rosewater and mix well. Cover and chill in the refrigerator. Always stir before using as materials will separate and settle.

The Blood and Tears is a rare example of a Halloween-themed cocktail that successfully balances kitsch and quality. And if you go the extra mile of making horchata from scratch, not only will you be rewarded with an extra flavorful cocktail with a bright floral aroma, but you’ll have plenty left over for the Dia de los Muertos party.

Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below.

Our Editor has named “death” as the theme for the remainder of October here on Umamimart, and it’s quite fitting because for most readers death is an apt description of the state of the Happy Hour column. As some of you know I haven’t written in over a month, having started a sabbatical to begin preparing for the B.A.R. course and exam, which is one of the most intensive spirits and mixology education programs that exists and offered only once a year at the end of September.

Over the course of the month of September I put practically everything–Happy Hour, bills, marriage, social life–on hold to study and prepare. You could see all my student loan lenders by simply glancing at the list of missed calls on my cell phone. And even though the course and exam concluded several weeks ago, I needed some more time to tend to all the things that were swept under the rug.

Thankfully the Happy Hour column is not dead, largely due to the effort of friend and fellow booze blogger Fredo Ceraso of Loungerati, who swooped in at my request to administer the necessary CPR that kept Happy Hour alive. If you haven’t read his two Happy Hour posts yet, you really ought to, as he provides wonderful cocktails for the Autumn season. Needless to say you should bookmark his blog if you’re a fan of great style and great cocktails.

Now that I’m back I figured I’d share a bit about my experience at the B.A.R., and afterwards share a recipe for an original cocktail I recently created while away.

Having taken and passed both the New York (two days, six hours each day) and California (three days, six hours each day) Bar Exams, I can confidently assert that I’m not easily phased by the rigors of academic examinations. That said, the B.A.R. exam administered on the final day of a week-long intensive course was not like any examination I had taken before; neither the Bar Exams, nor the LSAT or SAT compare.

The primary difference is that unlike previous academic tests, this one wasn’t purely academic.  In fact, the academic portion was the easiest section of the exam. The remaining sections (five total, and you must pass each section to pass the entire test) tested an array of skills from the ability to mix classic cocktails with speed, dexterity, and congeniality (yes the ability to converse matters in real bartending) to the ability to tell the difference between different classic cocktails or different spirits in blind tastings. And by “taste the difference” I mean not only be able to discern one spirit type from another (e.g. Bourbon from Rye whiskey), but also be able to say something about the relative proof, age, and other critical elements of each spirit. Not easy.

It’s not enough to memorize different taste and aroma characteristics of various spirits, as one must also be able to detect them physically on the palate. In this way it is the interaction between the cognitive (knowledge) and neural (sensory) functions that made this exam a different animal altogether, and those best able to negotiate that intersection were the most likely to pass.

How did I do? The truth is I don’t know yet–none of us do, and we probably won’t find out for another few weeks. In that agonizing regard, it is very similar to the Bar Exams.

Regardless of my performance on the exam, I can confidently say I exited the course with an exponentially higher level of knowledge than when I entered. That’s because the entire week was a grueling affair, with each day’s class beginning at 9am and concluding at around 9pm. Over the course of each 12 hour day we learned everything there is to learn about the history of alcohol distillation, the history and evolution of the cocktail, and the rules and regulations governing the production of all the major spirits categories which exist today. Peppered throughout these lessons were multiple sessions of spirits tastings, often beginning first thing in the morning, so that by week’s end we easily tasted over 100 different spirits (I lost count by day 2). Tough, but delicious, as I got the chance to taste many rare and expensive spirits that probably cost more than my life. The toughest part was spitting them back out (on Cognac day I learned a valuable lesson on the importance of spitting, having gotten nearly wasted before lunch).

The greatest lesson from this whole experience was coming to realize how little I knew, affirming more than ever that famous phrase, “the more you learn, the less you know.”

But enough dribbling on about academic stuff, it’s time for a cocktail. This week’s recipe is for a cocktail I call the Bear Trap, made with gin, mezcal, honey liqueur, and a couple other good measure modifiers.

Bear Trap
1 1/2 oz gin (I used G’vine Nouaison)
1/2 oz honey liqueur (Barenjager works)
1/2 oz mezcal (Mezcal Vida is a great, well-priced choice)
1/4 oz Pelinkovac (used Maraska brand)
1/4 oz Vermouth Perrucchi Blanco
2 dashes Bitter Truth Xocolatl Mole Bitters
Lemon twist

Tools: mixing glass, bar spoon, julep strainer
Glass: chilled coupe or cocktail glass

Pour all ingredients in a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir until very well chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and twist the lemon peel over the drink to release its oils then place in drink as garnish.

You can use any brand of gin you like in this cocktail, but I much prefer the G’vine Nouaison here if you can get your hands on it. What distinguishes this gin is that whereas gin is usually a grain-based distillate (distilled from beer), this is a grape-based distillate (distilled from wine, like Pisco) flavored with the botanicals commonly found in gin. Specifically it’s distilled from the Ugni Blanc grape so it’s actually closer in relation to Cognac prior to being placed in barrels for aging; and the specific botanical notes in the gin are of green grape flower, nutmeg, coriander, ginger root, liquorice, cassia, dried lime, and of course, juniper berries. It’s less juniper-defined than the traditional London Dry category of gin, and has floral and very strong coriander top notes that work well in this cocktail.

This cocktail utilizes a few ingredients that might seem obscure to some of you, so let me try my best to offer alternatives for those who can’t find some or all of the products in this recipe. If you can’t locate Barenjager liqueur try substituting Drambuie instead, which is more commonly available. Mezcal is much more easy to acquire and any smoky mezcal will do the job here, although I particularly like Vida from Del Maguey for its flavor profile, quality, and relatively low price point. If you can’t find a Pelinkovac simply substitute another digestif amaro like Del Capo, Ramazzotti, Cynar, or even Jagermeister (yes, the much maligned Jagermeister is an amaro). As for the Vermouth Perucchi Blanco, if you can’t find it substitute Lillet Blanc, Cocchi Americano, or even a Pineau des Charentes; they’re not perfect substitutions but they’ll allow you to end up with a generally balanced cocktail that’s a rough approximation of the one above. Lastly, if you can’t find the Xocolatl Mole Bitters then just make the drink without it, as there’s really no adequate substitute. Again it won’t be the same but it won’t be the end of the world either.

It’s great to be back!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below.

As far as Summers go, this was one of the best in recent memory. My first trip to Tales of the Cocktail, a new puppy, and all around nice, scorching hot weather made this season a tough act for Fall to follow. But alas, we have arrived at Summer’s twilight here in New York: the dried leaves on the ground have become more prevalent and noticeable; the afternoon highs struggle to hit the low 80s; the sun ends its shift before you’re ready to pack up the rooftop party; the evening winds foreshadow the change that’s afoot; and of course, signs for back to school sales abound.

But before we part ways, one last parting shot to remind you why Summer drinking is the shiznit–so of course it has to be an awesome, blended, ice-cold, brain-freeze yo’ mothafuckin’ ass (you gotta say it like Samuel Jackson) and scorch yo’ mothafuckin’ tongue concoction!  Behold the Torch’n Scorch.

Torch’n Scorch
2 oz. light rum
1 oz. cream of coconut
1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
1/2 oz. honey
1/2 tsp chipotle pepper sauce (see below for description)
10 basil leaves
2 sprigs cilantro (leaves removed from stem)
1 cup crushed ice
cherry pepper for garnish

Tools: blender
Glass: margarita glass aka coupette

Place everything in a blender and process on high until smooth.  Pour into a margarita glass and garnish with a cherry pepper.  For the chipotle sauce, simply blend the entire contents of a can of Chipotles in Adobo Sauce until well pureed and smooth.

This is a drink that can easily be altered to suit various individual tastes. If you like more tartness, simply increase the lime juice. Sweeter? Increase the cream of coconut and/or honey.  Have a higher heat tolerance? Go ahead and add another dollop of smoky chipotle sauce.  Hell, if you like flavored rums you can even sub that in for the standard rum if you like.

Here’s to going out with a bang. Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below.

This past Sunday I had rare the opportunity–via my cocktail consulting and event company, Life’s a Cocktail–to use the power of mixology to help the forces of good, serving up cocktails in the name of marriage equality as a vendor in the first ever Illegal Wedding Fair.  The event was held in an amazing West Village townhouse called 632 on Hudson (which notably housed MTV’s Real World 2001 cast), and featured a number of other wedding vendors willing to take a stand on this pressing issue. 

Umamimart’s own Erin Gleeson and Vanessa Bahmani also pitched in on the effort, both as co-organizers of the event and as vendors via their wedding photography company, E & V Weddings, where they set up their signature wedding photo booth featuring a vintage turn-of-the-century 8×10 camera.

The massive townhouse venue also has a basement ”speakeasy” space, which is where I was assigned to dish out my drinks.  Although the lack of air conditioning in the basement made it feel hotter than the Devil’s ass crack, which in turn wreaked havoc on my ice, I still managed to turn out a couple of crowd pleasers. 

I created two cocktails specially for the event.  I called one the Summer of Love (above right, pink), made with fresh strawberry-rhubarb puree, vodka, and seltzer.  The other I named the Gay Hemingway (above left, light golden color), which was a marriage equality-inspired variation on the Hemingway Daiquiri. It consists of vodka, fresh grapefruit juice, Lillet, apricot liqueur, and honey.  Initially my idea was to use a light rum in the Gay Hemingway, like the Hemingway Daiquiri itself, but Absolut was kind enough to sponsor with some bottles, so a switch was made at the last minute–and luckily, it worked fine.

Summer of Love
1 oz vodka
1  1/2 oz strawberry-rhubarb puree (recipe provided below)
1/2 barspoon fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 tsp)
seltzer to top

Combine the puree and vodka in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake hard and strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Top with seltzer and stir. Serve with a straw if you have one on hand.

Strawberry-rhubarb puree
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, stemmed
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup boiling water
4 stalks rhubarb, sliced about 1/4-1/2 inch thick
1/4 tsp almond extract

Place strawberries, brown sugar, boiling water, and almond extract in a blender and puree until smooth and combined.  Pour into a square baking dish and add the rhubarb, stirring to assure even distribution.  Bake uncovered at 300˚ for about 40 minutes, stirring every 15-20 minutes to make sure the rhubarb cooks evenly.  Once the rhubarb has softened, remove from the oven and puree in a blender.  At this point you can allow the puree to cool and use as is (which is what I did) or strain it if you prefer a thinner consistency.

Gay Hemingway
2 oz vodka (can also be made with a light rum)
1 oz fresh grapefruit juice
3/4 oz Lillet Blanc
1/4 oz apricot liqueur (I used Rothman & Winters brand)
1/4 oz honey syrup (2 parts honey diluted in 1 part water)

Combine ingredients in an ice-filled shaker. Shake it like big Papa’s belly on a boat during a hurricane. Strain into an ice-filled rocks glass and enjoy. Then do as Hemingway would and have about 16 more.

Every now and then you’re fortunate enough to be a part of an event that matters beyond the dollars and cents, and this was one of those opportunities. And regardless of whether actual political change was made (it wasn’t), it was no less refreshing to see other like-minded businesses using their enterprise as a tool for progress.  Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below.

**Photo credits: Erin Gleeson Photography and E&V Wedding Photography

It’s mid-January and by this point many of you are off to the races as far as your resolutions are concerned. You’ve detoxed, cleaned up your diet, and are hitting the gym as frequently as a Playboy bunny who’s about to be cut from the squad.

However if you’re like me, 2010 didn’t really start off with a sprint to the gym, but rather a slow crawl to the yack-box. In fact I’m already breaking a resolution to not blog at work. And if you really are like me, and you don’t care too much for colonics and kale and banana smoothies, but want to feel like you’re at least taking some steps in the right direction to renew and rejuvenate your body, then I have the perfect elixir for you.

It’s called The Detox, and with it’s potent yet tasty blend of vodka, lemon juice, honey, rosemary, and chiles, it’s sure to kill any toxins (even the good ones) living inside you, and it tastes good to boot. Best of all you won’t need a yoga mat nor a gym membership. All you’ll need are a few key ingredients and your trusty cocktail shaker–and how often has your shaker, under my steady guidance, steered you wrong? Riddle me that if you will.

The Detox
2 oz vodka (I used Martin Ryan)
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz honey-rosemary syrup (see recipe near bottom of this post)
dash cayenne pepper
For the rim: cayenne, puebla chile powder, and date sugar (recipe below)

Glass: cocktail glass
Tools: shaker, strainer

Rub a lemon slice along the outer rim of the cocktail glass and dip it in the chile and date sugar mixture. Pour the other ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake until well chilled. Strain, enjoy, and repeat until your system is fully cleansed.

To make the rim mixture simply blend together 3-4 tbsp date sugar (found at most health food stores) with 1 tsp puebla chile powder and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper. If you’re spice averse you can exclude the cayenne pepper on the rim, since there’ll already be a dash of it in the cocktail.

Although I am not a vodka hater, in the world of craft mixology vodka is often treated worse than a biracial illegitimate stepchild. However I chose vodka in this cocktail for many of the same reasons it is hated: its purity and lack of dominating flavor which enable it to act more as a blank canvass in a cocktail than as a flavor component. I used Martin Ryan vodka because unlike most vodkas which have their souls distilled out of them, this still retains a bit of the spirit and essence of its origin distillate base, Oregon grapes.

So who needs all those new age detox diets and such when you have so many cleansing botanicals in one cocktail, right? Here’s to a starting the year on a healthy note. Cheers!

*Got a cocktail question? Hit me on twitter @paystyle, email me at payman(at)lifesacocktail(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

**Paystyle was born in Tehran and grew up in Los Angeles (aka Tehrangeles) before moving to Brooklyn with his wife and co-pilot Vanessa Bahmani who provides the stunning photography of Pay’s cocktail concoctions. Return every Wednesday for his weekly Happy Hour column.

Look what Alice brought back for me all the way from glorious Roma– a huge glass jar of organic, orange-flavored honey!!! It’s so heckaheavy, she’s out of her mind for even thinking of lugging this back to SF in her luggage. Her devotion for me is like no other.

Alice is just as much, if not more of a Packaging Whore as I am. She admitted that she saw this honey in Campo dei Fiori, loved the label design, and bought it. Sigh. We are such SUCKERS.

But come on, can you blame her? It’s just so damn cute! See the honeycomb design on the cap? LOVEIT.

Alice said that the guy at the honey stall in Campo gave her a complete run-down about his honeys in English. My Italiano is a bit rusty, but I am assuming that he is Osvaldo, as the label says “Osvaldo er biologgico.”

Bear with me, but I’m reading that this is organic, made by native bees from Umbria (the neighboring region to Roma).

Handwritten to consume before 2012.

Remember when @totallymatt brought me back a jar of cornichons from Paris? That one was also a Packaging Whore highlight. All great packaging comes from abroad- why is that?? Get your food packaging together, USA!

LOVE YOU ALICE! Thanks for such a wonderful gift, from one Packaging Whore to another.