A few months ago Jon was looking through a book of cocktails and found an interesting but slightly complicated drink that itself a variation of another cocktail called a Boulevardier. Apparently a classic, but one we’d never heard of, we decided to try the original drink immediately, and have made it many, many times since. We still haven’t made the variation.

The Boulevardier is like a combination of a Negroni and a Manhattan: rye, vermouth and campari. And it has many of the best qualities of both drinks. The campari is what I taste first, with its fruity bitterness, then the rye’s warmth comes up from underneath. Every sip seems a little bit different. Our recipe says not to garnish the drink, but I like it quite a lot with a good twist of orange peel.

We’re not the only ones enjoying this drink recently – there was a nice discussion of it in the New York Times last week. See how fashionable we are?

Boulevardier

• 1 ½ oz rye or bourbon (some recipes call for 2 oz)
• 1 oz sweet vermouth
• 1 oz campari

Stir all ingredients with ice, then strain into either a cocktail glass or over ice into a rocks glass. Garnish, if you like, with orange or lemon peel.

I had various ideas for posts to put up this week, but then it snowed and everything went to hell. Which is basically what happens when it snows in Western Washington. Whether it’s half an inch or twenty inches, schools close, people stay home from work, grocery shelves get depleted, and Twitter and Facebook turn into unending streams of complaints and snow pictures. We stayed home, turned on the fire, and made cocktails.

It’s been a while since Jon has done much drink experimentation – we’ve been happy with our repertoire of drinks, with an occasional new addition. But the unexpected down time this week inspired him to try several new recipes. Here are the ones we tried (and lest this list seem alarmingly long, keep in mind we’ve had all week to get through these):

The Day Off

• 1.5 oz bourbon (we use Bulleit)
• 0.5 oz Aperol
• 1 oz pomegranate juice

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist. (Note: the drink in the picture was shaken, not stirred, which is why it has foam on top. We recommend stirring for a clearer cocktail.)

Snowed In

• 1.5 oz bourbon
• 1 oz Averna
• 0.5 oz Carpano Antica formula vermouth
• 0.5 oz pomegranate juice

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

The Snow Day

• 1 oz rye
• 1 oz Lillet blanc
• 0.5 oz lemon juice
• 0.5 oz triple sec
• dash absinthe

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Jon’s note: “I think this one may still want a little tweaking. The concept is good, but the balance isn’t quite right.”

The Pitchfork

• 0.75 oz aquavit
• 0.75 oz Carpano Antica formula vermouth
• 0.75 oz Averna
• 3 dashes rhubarb bitters

Stir with ice and serve on the rocks.
Jon’s note: “This is my variation on the Trident, which is itself a variation of a Negroni. The Trident takes the Negroni recipe and swaps aquavit for the gin, dry sherry for the vermouth, and Cynar for the Campari, and then adds peach bitters. I’ve brought back the vermouth, used Averna instead of Cynar and rhubarb bitters in place of peach.”

Manhattan variation:  Averna instead of vermouth, and rhubarb bitters instead of Angostura. Served on the rocks, no garnish. This was nice.

Brooklyn variation: St. Germain instead of vermouth and Averna instead of Torani Amer.

And finally, my favorite discovery of the week: the Norwegian Sunset. Imbibe Magazine just posted this as part of their online newsletter and we made it immediately. It’s wonderful – the rich vermouth and amaro balancing the caraway of the aquavit. I loved it. Will make again.

Norwegian Sunset

• 1 1/2 oz. aquavit (we used Linie, but we’re guessing that Krogstad would be even better)
• 3/4 oz. Aperol
• 1/2 oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
• Garnish: 5 drops Regan’s orange bitters

Combine the aquavit, aperol and vermouth in a shaker and stir with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with the bitters.

On Tuesday of last week, we had driven to Issaquah to pick up my work from an art show and decided to go home by way of Seattle. We ended up in Capitol Hill exactly at 5 o’clock, just in time to get a seat at the bar at Canon, Jamie Boudreau’s new place (which is in the old Licorous location, btw). And if that weren’t cool enough, our bartender turned out to be none other than the legendary Murray Stenson, previously of Zig Zag Cafe. He said he had only worked half a dozen shifts or so at Canon, and he was still feeling his way around the bar, but it was a true pleasure to finally get to watch him at work.

The cocktail menu had some interesting drinks on it, but none of them seemed quite what we wanted. Murray pierced us each with a penetrating stare and asked a few pertinent questions (clear or brown? bitter or sweet?) After a short interrogation, he determined that what I wanted was a drink made with either bourbon or rye, bitter or herbal in tone, but soft and easy. He whisked away and poked around in the shelves, returning shortly with a cocktail. A version of the Currier (this was the only drink name we were able to get out of Murray all night), it had Buffalo Trace bourbon, Rose’s lime juice, fresh lime and kummel, a caraway-scented liqueur. Really interesting, balanced and complex.

Jon’s first drink was a gorgeous concoction of excellent rum and amaro and I forget what else. It was delicious. I have no memory of his second drink, except that I know it had Campari in it. Dang, I knew I should have been taking notes. I do remember that we had a plate of ricotta gnudi with kale and shiitakes that was truly delightful and paired rather well with our first round.

As we sat admiring the liquor collection, my eye was caught by the tequila selection almost immediately over my head. I asked if I could have something with tequila for my second cocktail, and Murray’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah!” he said, and dashed off. The drink that appeared before me definitely had tequila and green Chartreuse, but I’m not at all sure what else. Some sort of juice, and a bit of lime zest. It paired perfectly with the Barron Point oysters we were eating.

Needless to say, Canon is an amazing bar (dare I say, even on a night when Murray isn’t working). We are SO going back as soon as possible.

For a long time I wasn’t really sure what a daiquiri was. I first learned of its existence from old Doonesbury comic strips, back when Duke was governor of Samoa and went through gallons of banana daiquiri. I thought it sounded exotic but disgusting, and never tried one. Recently I became aware that, while there are still horrible sugary-fruity-yuck versions of the daiquiri floating around, the original really didn’t sound that bad: just rum, lime juice, sugar. An actual drink for grownups: a little tart, a little sweet. Huh. We had a bunch of limes left over from our party, so one sunny afternoon I asked Jon to make me a daiquiri. He did. And it was good.

Classic Daiquiri

Loads of versions out there, obviously. This one is from Speakeasy, by Kosmas & Zaric. It was tasty. And large.

• 2 ½ oz Flor de Caña rum (or some other rum, but this is a nice light one)
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• ¾ oz simple syrup
• 1 lime wheel for garnish

Shake the rum, juice and syrup with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with the lime wheel.

We’ve missed the last few Mixology Mondays, for various reasons, but when we saw that May’s theme was floral cocktails (hosted over at The Barman Cometh), we made a special effort to get something together. There are quite a few floral-based cocktails we like, particularly the Deep Blue Sea (violet) and the Vieux Mot (elderflower). We thought it would be fun to come up with something new with one of those flavors, so Jon did some experimenting these last couple of weeks, then wrote this:

As Jessamyn has already mentioned, I recently got a copy of the very fine book Left Coast Libations.  While many of the recipes therein have immediately grabbed me, demanding to be made, other recipes have remained more aloof.

Case in point, the Pear Sonata.  I’m just not a big fan of dusting a drink with ground cinnamon, and even if I were, there’s no way in hell I’m going to make pear foam.  Pear foam?  Really?

However, after letting the recipe percolate in my mind for a while, I began to recognize that for all of its weird trappings, the Pear Sonata has good, solid bones to it.  Gin, St. Germain, dry vermouth, and lemon juice.  Nothing wrong there.  What if I were to tweak the proportions a bit, leave off the pear foam (really?), and let the St. Germain shine through?  It seemed worth a try.

I began with a base of Bluecoat gin.  Bluecoat, made here in the US, has quickly become one of our very favorite gins, with a distinctly citrusy note to it, which I thought would work well with the St. Germain, which I boosted to a full jigger’s worth.  Lemon juice and dry vermouth, and in a nod to the original Pear Sonata recipe, just a dash of Clear Creek pear brandy.

A twist of orange to garnish.  I find that I have grown very fond of using orange to garnish drinks containing lemon juice – it’s similar enough not to clash, yet different enough to add a little extra dimension to the drink.  And as I was about to present it, Jessamyn added her own touch: a single lilac flower.

Elderflower Descant

• 1 oz. Bluecoat gin
• ¾ oz. St Germain
• ½ oz. lemon juice
• ½ oz. Dolin dry vermouth
• dash Clear Creek pear brandy

Shake well with ice and strain.  Garnish with a long twist of orange and a lilac flower.

We’ve continued on our recent kick of trying new cocktails, mostly from Left Coast Libations but occasionally dipping back into other cocktail references. The trouble is, if we don’t write down what we’re trying, we forget the names almost instantly. When I went through my photos from the last few weeks to see what I had shot in the way of cocktails, I found several – but I had only a vague idea of which drinks they had been.

This one I’m pretty sure was the Historic Core, created by Joseph Brooke in LA. It had Rittenhouse rye, apple brandy, Chartreuse, Carpano Antica vermouth, Angostura bitters and lemon peel. I remember it as being interesting but not riveting.

This one was a complete mystery to me. I liked how Jon zested the orange, but I had no memory of the drink itself. When I asked, he said it was a variation on a drink called an Ueno San, with rye instead of bourbon, cocchi americano instead of Lillet, orange bitters instead of peach bitters, and Carpano Antica. So there you go. I suppose we might experiment more with that one.

Maybe I should take better notes.

A heavy amaro, a bitter orange aperitif, a really good vermouth, and elderflower liqueur, all mixed together in a glass. This didn’t sound like a very likely combo when I first heard it, but when Jon put the drink together and gave me a sip, I was amazed. The word that comes to mind is comforting: sweet, spicy and deep. This is a drink that’s going to make a lot of appearances next fall. It’s definitely more than the sum of its parts.

Fior di Sicily

From Left Coast Libations by Ted Munat and Michael Lazar

Combine the spirits in a mixing glass, stir with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. Flame the orange peel over the drink, then add the peel to the glass.

Our cocktail repertoire has been stabilizing lately, after a flurry of trying dubious new recipes and wishing we’d stuck with tried and true drinks. Mostly we’ve been drinking Negronis, Brooklyns or Manhattans, with the occasional Spring Feeling or a straight Martin Miller martini – and we’ve liked it that way. But when we were at Oliver’s Twist the other day, they had a book on the counter that sent us completely out of our comfort zone.

It’s called Left Coast Libations, and it consists of short profiles of bartenders from California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, along with two original cocktails from each of them. Several of these folks are people we’ve met and who have made us amazing drinks (I was especially pleased to see Casey Robison in here – he and his staff at Barrio have done wonders for our cocktail education – and one of the bartenders at Oliver’s was in there, too). While we sat at the bar, we flipped through the book and immediately began finding recipes we desperately wanted to try. We copied a few down, tried them at home, then bought the book the very next chance we got. It’s just that good.

Not all of the drinks are going to be winners, of course. We tried one with gin and sherry vinegar that, frankly, went straight down the drain. I’m finding that peach bitters taste really disgusting to me and should probably be avoided. And I’m just not going to drink anything that has blueberries and lavender in it. But there are some really, really good possibilities in here.

This cocktail, the Toto, was the first one we tried. It’s the creation of Kelley Swenson, currently running the bar at June, but who until recently was working at the now defunct ten01 in Portland. It makes me really sorry that the only drink I ever had there was a pear concoction with so much cinnamon on top I couldn’t taste the cocktail. I certainly should have given them another try, because the Toto is absolutely wonderful. We’re looking forward to working our way through the rest of this book.

Toto

• 3/4 oz El Jimador or Cazadores reposado tequila (actually we used 1800 and it was just fine)
• 3/4 oz green Chartreuse
• 3/4 oz Cynar
• lemon twist

Combine the tequila, Chartreuse and Cynar with ice and stir. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with the lemon twist. Serve up.

Oliver’s Twist, a cocktail bar on Phinney Ridge in Seattle, was one of the places that helped kick off our cocktail obsession – it was the very first place that we ever tasted a Corpse Reviver #2, considered one of the great “gateway” cocktails. That was several years ago, and yet we hadn’t been back. Mostly because the place is always crammed full of hip young things, but still. I guess we got distracted by Liberty and Barrio. Anyway. We finally made it back there last week, and the first thing I saw as we settled ourselves at the bar was a slightly weathered looking bottle of Amer Picon.

A French bitter liqueur, this stuff is not easy to find these days. It used to be available in the states, and many classic cocktails call for it. But now I hear the only way to get it is to buy it in France, or find a bartender or other cocktail geek with a personal stash and attempt to buy it off of them (good luck). One of our favorite drinks, the Brooklyn, is technically supposed to be made with Picon, but we’ve always used Amaro Nonino as a make-do, and I’d never tried the cocktail made to its original recipe. So when I saw that bottle, my first thought was to ask the bartender for a Brooklyn.

His first reaction was to say “I really should hide that bottle” – but then he not only made me a Brooklyn, he also gave me a sip of the Picon so I could experience its taste undiluted. I would have loved to try it side by side with other amari, but it seemed most like Averna to us – lots of caramel and orange, but not too sweet. The cocktail was perfectly balanced and delicious, but didn’t taste extremely different than our adapted version. It was, however, nicely built and quite large. And excellent with truffled popcorn.

If we ever have the opportunity to get a bottle of Picon, we definitely will, but I’m reassured to know that the cocktails we make at home are acceptably close. And I can always go back to Oliver’s Twist for a reminder, at least until that bottle runs out.

What do you do when life dumps 18″ of snow on top of you and everything comes screeching to a halt? You shovel until you can’t move, turn up the house heat, and make cocktails. At least that’s what we did. It worked very well.