Posts tagged booze

I’ve been meaning to experiment with mustard cocktails for a while, and tonight, it turns out, is the night.

A little inspiration-searching has turned up a couple blog posts by someone named Matt Turner who tends a bar called Anvil in Houston:

• Turner on the Anvil house blog
• Turner at Bon Appetit

Looks like gin is a solid choice. Which is lucky because that’s all I have. I’ve always loved a nice rosemary-gin fizz, and I thought mustard could make the perfect complement. Oh, and I added a kick of black pepper.

Here goes:

Mustard-Rosemary Gin Fizz with Black Pepper

• 1 1/2oz Gin (Plymouth in this case)
• 1/4oz Lemon juice
• 1 scant bar spoon Grey Poupon
• 3/4oz Rosemary-black pepper simple syrup (see below)
• Soda/seltzer/fizz (depending on where you’re from)

Shake first four ingredients with ice. Pour into rocks glass with rocks and mix with soda to taste (somewhere between a splash and halfsies).

Pairing recommendations:

• Freshly popped popcorn, tossed with a bit of olive oil, salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper, garlic powder and cumin
• Twin Peaks, on Netflix Instant

Rosemary-Black Pepper Simple Syrup

• 1c Sugar
• 1c Water
• 3 sprigs rosemary
• 1/2tsp ground black pepper

Bring ingredients to a boil in a saucepan with the lid on. Remove from heat and let steep for 10 minutes. Strain, cool and use.

Pumpkin chai cocktail, anyone? That’s what I thought you’d say.

I’ve had some pumpkin vodka infusing for a couple of weeks: a liter of Ketel (anything Smirnoff or Svedka and above would be fine), a can of pumpkin, a few whole cloves, cinnamon sticks and black peppercorns. Keep it in a cool, dark place, and shake every so often to mix it up.

I’ve been saving it for Thanksgiving, but couldn’t resist a test run last night. I strained it using a French press. Kind of a pain, and it kept getting stuck in the pumpkin sludge on the sides, but I think it was definitely the way to go. Coffee filters take too long. Cheesecloth would be worth a shot, but I was feeling lazy last night and the French press was closer.

I had made chai simple syrup last weekend: black ceylon tea, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cloves and allspice, with the requisite sugar and water. Essentially your basic spiced chai, but concentrated and with extra sugar.

Mixed ‘em together, along with some brown sugar simple syrup I had, for good measure, and soda/seltzer* with a sprinkle of lemon zest.

Turns out, not surprisingly, that this pumpkin chai creation = autumn in a glass. Lovely way to spend a Friday night in front of the fire. (It’s OK, you can be jealous that I have a fireplace. Unless you have one, in which case, I hope you used yours last night, too.)

*I’ve discovered a regional disparity with the terminology used for carbonated water. Michigander that I am, I call it, “soda.” Now that I’m in New York, I find that if I order a “vodka soda,” there’s no confusion, but if I order a “soda water,” no one understands what I’m saying. I think people here mostly call it, “seltzer.” I suppose because “soda” is a term reserved for the stuff I call, “pop.”

Thank god the superbowl is over so I can get drunk in peace on Mondays again