A Bitter Spirit

Day 5: Night of the Radishes

Ah regional festivals.  It's in these settings that you truly begin to uncover the traditions and history of a culture. There's mud throwing in Korea, baby jumping in Spain, or even hair freezing in the Yukon.  All a little quirky, all a little fun to be a spectator at.  One such Christmas related festival is the Night of the Radishes in Oaxaca, Mexico.  The radish was introduced to the area by the Spanish missionaries and progressively grew in popularity.  During the colonial period, vendors in the local Christmas markets decided to begin carving radishes into intricate sculptures and scenes in hopes of attracting more and more visitors.  Finally in 1897, the mayor of Oaxaca declared the first radish carving competition and the Night of the Radishes had begun.

For this cocktail, we went in what seems a logical direction: radish infused tequila.  That met with mixed results.  First, the radish actually smooths the tequila and lends a nice peppery finish.  However, there is a distinct, ahem, farty smell that is given off as the radishes infuse.  Mmmmm, tasty.  After kicking around several ideas (see the Cocktail Notes below), we decided to go with a Cadillac style margarita.  The Grand Marnier and St. Germaine fill in the gaps and add a nice grapefruit quality to the pepper radish.

The Night of the Radishes Cocktail

• 2 parts - radish-infused tequila (we used el Jimador)
• 1 part - Grand Marnier
• 1 part - St. Germain
• 1/2 part - Fresh Lime Juice

For the infusion: coarsely chop a small bunch of radishes (6-8) and place in 2 cups of tequila. Wait 2 days. Un-cap the jar. Release the Farts of Doom and Hellfire into the room (be careful not the drop the jar). Wait another day. Farts are less potent. Infusion starts to taste like radishes.

For the drink: combine ingredients into shaker. Shake over ice. Pour into cocktail glass. Garnish with thin wheel of lime.

Cocktail Notes

• In a weird "first crack" at this cocktail, we tried our tequila radish infusion and Bols Melon. It brings out the absolute worst in each of the two.
• We then tried it with Aperol, thinking that the bitter in the Aperol might be a nice boost to the radish with a hint of orange. In reality, no orange ..just lots of bitter. In a rando thought, Kate says "Let's add chocolate .. like a mole". Kate may have done too much tasting at this point. We tried Aztec Chocolate Bitters and Gifards Chocolate Syrup. This was not a good idea.
• Finally .. we brought out the big guns .. Grand Marnier. If anything will smooth this bad boy out and tame those radishes, it's Grand Marnier. Like in a Cadillac margarita.

Day 3: Yule Log

Yule or Yuletide is, of course, a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later undergoing Christianised reformulation resulting in the now better-known Christmastide (of course!). Now, there are about a b'zillion Yule traditions (Yule boar, Yule goat, Yule hunts, Yule singing .. all kinds of Yule). But one of Kate's favourites is the Yule log. And perhaps, not surprisingly, not the Yule log that you burn on Christmas eve and if it goes out and you have to light it again, you're in for a year of bad luck.

Rather, the Yule log that is made of cake (obvi).

A Yule Log cake is a delightful confection made of sponge cake and chocolate buttercream. It is shaped and decorated like an actual log, often including small marzipan mushrooms.

We thought it would be tasty to recreate this flavour in a cocktail. But we also wanted to reference the actual burning Yule log. So how's about a smoky black tea infusion in creme de cacao with a hint of amaretto for the marzipan? 

The Yule Log Cocktail

• 1 part - Toasted Black Tea infused Creme de Cacao
• 1 part - Rum (we used Flor de Caña)
• 1 part - Amaretto (we used Disaronno)
• frothy or whipped cream

For the tea infusion: toast a tablespoon of black tea in cast iron pan until a nice aroma comes up. Maybe 10 minutes periodically tossing. Combine toasted tea with 1 cup of Creme de Cacao. Infuse for 1.5 to 2 hours.

For the cocktail: put ingredients into shaker over ice. Shake. Pour into a sipping glass. Top with frothy or whipped cream. Dust that with cocoa.

Cocktail Notes

• We also did an infusion with toasted black tea and cocoa nibs in the creme de cacao .. there's an extra bit of bitterness to it. Not bad, just a little more bitter - if that's your jam.
• We also considered Kahula (as a reference to the espresso flavour that is often in the icing on a yule log) or Frangelico in place of the Amaretto. We just liked the Amaretto best. 

Day 2: St. Lucy's Day

Continuing with Light Festivals, today's cocktail was inspired by St. Lucy's Day.  Originally associated with the Winter Solstice before all those calendar redos, St. Lucy's Day is celebrated on December 13.  Tradition holds that St. Lucy, wearing a candle-lit wreath, brought food into the catacombs to feed the refuges who were hiding there.  Each year, the celebration of St. Lucy's Day, particular in Scandinavia, marks the beginning of Christmastide. 

One of the traditions on this holiday is the making (and, of course eating!) of saffron buns.  These yeasty lussekatt are made with a little saffron bloomed in brandy and some raisins.   To reflect this, we infused some vodka (Absolut for the Scandinavian connection) with saffron and raisins.  To this infusion, we added some B & B to give some warmth, spice and sweetness.  Instead of making it a full drink, we decided that a shot would A. be something different for our calendar and B. if we flamed it, it would be reflective of the candles on St. Lucy's wreath (Holy imagery, Batman!).  We got the shot, but flamed out on the flaming as the vodka did not have a high enough proof!  Ah well, still a fun festive drink to celebrate with.

The St. Lucy Cocktail

• 1 part - Vodka infused with Saffron and Raisins
• 1 part - B&B

To make infusion: combine about 1/4 cup raisins and 2 tsp saffron strands with 1 cup of vodka. Let it sit for 2 days.

To make cocktail: combine ingredients in shaker over ice. Pour into glass.

If you want to make this a flaming shot, don't shake over ice.

Cocktail Notes

• We thought about trying currants as well as raisins. But we didn't have any and we were running out of time. If you try it with currants, let us know how it goes!
• Don't burn yourself.

Day 11: Eleven Pipers Piping Cocktail

Hello, fellow cocktail drinkers.  Here we are at the penultimate cocktail in our Twelve Days of Christmas cocktail calendar.  For the cocktails thus far, we've made some connection to the given verse of the carol, whether it was a literal ingredient or inspired by the words or tone of the verse.  With this cocktail, we fully admit that the cocktail we made has nothing to do with the number 11, pipers or piping.  We found a recipe that adds olive oil to a brandy sour to make the cocktail a little deeper and richer in flavour.  We took that idea and riffed on it, making the sour out of a cherry and fig infused brandy.

Eleven Pipers Piping Cocktail

• 2 parts cherry and fig infused brandy (see cocktail notes below)
• 1/2 part lemon juice
• 3/4 part simple syrup
• 1 tsp good quality olive oil 
• 1 tsp egg white
• spritz of Pernod

Combine the brandy, lemon juice, simple syrup, olive oil and egg white in a cocktail shaker.  Dry shake for at least 20 seconds.  Add ice and shake until the cocktail is chilled.  Pour into a coupe glass and mist with Pernod.

Cocktail Notes

• For the brandy infusion, we used 1 cup of brandy, 1/4 a cup of dried cherries and 2 dried figs (roughly cut up).  Let that mixture set for at least 2 days to get the full flavour of the fruit in the brandy.
• The original recipe called for a mist of Herbsaint which we didn't have but found that Pernod married nicely with infused brandy.
• Make sure your olive oil is fresh!  We found out the hard way that some of the olive oil in the kitchen had turned.
• The dry shake is extremely important to help emulsify the ingredients together.  Without that, the cocktail won't taste like an integrated drink.

Day 22: Tennessee Christmas

The song inspiration for today's cocktail is Tennessee Christmas, written by Amy Grant and Gary Chapman. Originally recorded for Amy's 1983 A Christmas Album, it has since been recorded by several different artists.

Tennessee Christmas reminds us of homeyness and homeyness recalls holiday traditions like fruit cake. Fruit cake? Yes, fruit cake. Because we thoroughly enjoy fruit cake. Well, fruit cake done properly with lots of booze like rum and brandy. Of course, rum and brandy together harkens to the classic Between the Sheets cocktail. Similar to a Sidecar, a Between the Sheets combines brandy, rum, cointreau and lemon. For this incarnation, we decided to try and create a fruitcake-like infusion in the brandy.

Tennesse Christmas Cocktail
1 part infused brandy
1/2 part cointreau
1 part rum
1/2 part lemon juice
1/2 part spiced syrup

Place all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

First, a Pro Tip: even though you've finished the bottle, you shouldn't put it in the recycling bin until you've taken the picture; otherwise, you end up with a sticky note on a bottle of Baileys. Second, there is technically no actual fruitcake in this cocktail. The fruitcake represents the myriad of fruits and spices we infused the booze and syrup with.

Cocktail Notes
While you could just slice up a couple of pieces of fruit cake and stick it into some brandy, we decided to build an infusion from scratch. In making it, it was a dash of this and a bit of that kind of concoction but here's the best guess as to the components:
1/4 cup pecan pieces
2 Tbsp raisins
1 Tbsp dried cherries
2 prunes
peel of half an orange, whole piece (not grated)
peel of half a lemon, whole piece (not grated)

Place all the ingredients into a large container and allow to sit for at least 6 days. Strain and use.
Note: originally we had added about 6 prunes, but the infusion was way too sweet after just 3 days so we removed them. One or two will add the depth of flavour without making it too sweet.

We decided to make a spiced syrup so we could control the level of spice better than was possible in an alcohol infusion. For the syrup we used:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cinammon stick
2 cloves
2 cardamom pods
1 tsp nutmeg

The syrup can easily be made in the microwave by placing all the ingredients into a heat proof container (a 2 cup Pyrex measure would be perfect) and slowly heating it until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool and then strain.

Listen Along

 

Want to know how to feel old at Christmas? Look for a video of one of the favourite holiday songs of your youth and then realise that some guy has cut 30 years of the same artist performing that song together into one video. THIRTY YEARS! ZOMG.

Day 18: On Christmas Day

The carol for today's cocktail is a contemporary song by the group Father Tiger called On Christmas Day.  It's a little funky, a little modern and has an electronic dance music (EDM) groove.  And you can download it for FREE!

So here's the deal. We (here "we" means Drew) thought of doing something cool to highlight the EDM nature of On Christmas Day. Maybe some tonic water and a black light? Maybe some coloured frozen ice cubes to represent motes of neon lights in a club? Or maybe Drew had delusions of grandeur (it is, after all, Day 18). Anyhow, we landed on something simpler. Like just using a more "hip" base spirit such as pisco. So here it is...

On Christmas Day Cocktail
1 1/2 oz mulberry tea infused pisco
1/2 oz creme yvette
3/4 oz maraschino liqueur
1/2 oz lemon juice
brandied cherry (for garnish)
coupe glass

Place all of the ingredients but the cherry into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled. Strain into coupe glass and garnish with a cherry (or two).

Cocktail Notes
Drew loves pisco. In fact, 2011 was the year of the pisco sour for him and he's not looked back since. Kate had not had pisco until this cocktail but her exact words after trying some were,"Why are we not drinking more pisco?" So if you haven't had it, TRY IT!

This cocktail is actually a variation of the Pillow Talk. Drew liked the idea of tea-infused pisco. We tried three types of tea infusions: dragon pearl, earl grey and mulberry leaf. Pisco, or at least the pisco we used, really accentuates floral flavours. Who knew? Not us. The dragon pearl had WAY too much of a jasmine overtone and actually did taste like your grandmother's Avon order. The earl grey was rather pleasant (and ended up being a nice infused pisco sour later). The mulberry highlighted the violet notes in the Creme Yvette without being too floral.

Listen Along

Day 17: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Today's cocktail inspiration is the carol, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. The text of the carol is based on a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, Christmas Bells, published in 1865. The poem's narrator opines that the hate in the world mocks the song of peace carried by Christmas bells. But ultimately, the bells triumph and the narrator finds a renewed hope for peace throughout the world. Perfect for our "Spirit of the Season" theme week.

When creating most of our cocktails, we start with a specific ingredient that the carol text inspires or we research a traditional drink from the country of origin. This particular cocktail, however, was inspired by a very specific version of the carol sung by The Civil Wars. It is breathy, warm, and a little sultry (a different kind of Spirit of the Season - wink, wink). To us, the cocktail that best represents these qualities is a sidecar. To make it extra sexy, we used B & B instead of regular brandy and infused it with figs. We also infused the Cointreau with some thyme and made a cardamom syrup to round out the flavours.

I Hear the Bells on Christmas Day Cocktail
2 oz fig infused B & B (Benedictine and Brandy)
1 oz thyme infused Cointreau
1 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz cardamom syrup
coupe glass

Pour all ingredients into a shaker with ice and shake until cold. Strain into a chilled glass.

Cocktail Notes
To make the fig infusion, chop up four dried figs and add to 1 cup of B & B and let it sit for at least 3 days.

To make the thyme infusion, add the leaves from about 6 sprigs of fresh thyme to 1/4 cup of Cointreau. Steep the thyme in the Cointreau for at least 4 hours or longer depending on desired strength.

The cardamom simple syrup is a 1:1 syrup with about 1 Tbsp of green, gently cracked cardamom pods in it.

Listen Along

We couldn't find a version of the Civil Wars doing this live, so you'll have to settle for this rip from the holiday CD. So many other great videos on their site - sad they broke up.

Day 13: The Cherry Tree Carol

Our cocktail inspiration for today is The Cherry Tree Carol, a Child ballad based on an apocryphal story about Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem. While traveling through a cherry orchard, Mary asks Joseph to pick a cherry for her. He refuses saying "get your baby daddy to pick your cherries" (we paraphrase). The in utero Baby Jesus hears his mother's request and bends a cherry tree branch down so she can reach some damn cherries.

We started with a pretty straightforward idea - something cherry. But we didn't want to do just a simple cherry sour or similar. Kate got a butane torch for her birthday last month. This cocktail was calling out for some kind of fire or smoke. Let's burn some cherry wood!

The Cherry Tree Carol Cocktail
2 oz bourbon (we used Trace - so smooth)
1 oz cherry-infused Benedictine
1 dropper Apothecary Spirit Fire Bitters
Orange rind
Cherry wood chips
Cocktail glass

• Combine bourbon, Benedictine and bitters in shaker. 
• Light a pile of cherry wood chips on fire. 
• Blow out fire when it starts to smoke. 
• Invert cocktail glass over smoke and capture in the glass. 
• Add ice to shaker and shake to chill. 
• Strain into smoke filled cocktail glass. 
• Take a slice of orange peel, express the oil over the cocktail glass and light on fire. 
• Note: this cocktail is a little easier to assemble if you have two people.

Cocktail Notes
To infuse the Benedictine, we added about 1/4 cup dried cherries into about 1/2 cup Benedictine and let it infuse overnight.

We also made a cherry infusion with Suze (same ratio). It was tasty, but not as good as the Benedictine.

Our cocktail is a variation of one created by the good folks at Apothecary Bitters - the Gedi Prime. They use a cherry-infused vermouth and then infuse the booze with the smoke, rather than fill the glass. We like the smoke-filled glass because of the effect when you serve it. And surprisingly, the smoke stays in the glass longer than you would expect. We refrigerated the cocktail for a few hours before drinking it, and the smoke could definitely still be tasted in the glass.

Listen Along

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.

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