Hello true believers (thanx Stan Lee),

Big things happening at Mise this year right out of the gate for 2010!  If you haven’t heard, Mise en Place is operating the Sono Café at the Tampa Museum of Art, so we’re all excited about embracing the energy of Tampa’s newly restored river-front art district.  Show season is upon us too and the shows of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center have kept us bustling along with an extended Valentine’s Day weekend.

For the new decade I have some fun things planned for my best bar patrons.  First, Cocktail Club is next week, February 25th from 7-9pm, and the subject is Cognac.  We had a great turnout last month and I’d love to keep that energy going!  If you haven’t been to a meeting is awhile, I lowered the price to $25 a person, so there’s no excuse to come out and have a blast with us.  Also, this March 2nd I will be hosting a Scotch Tasting with Balvenie & Glennfiddich.  Seating will be very limited (5 to be exact), so get ahold of me at Mise and I’ll let you know what’s available.

Last month we tasted our way through some delicious Tequila.  I made my every popular Devil’s Advocate and my “Milagro de poca sangre” along with a Cat’s Eye and we tasted through several popular brands of tequila.

Cat’s Eye

1 1/2 ounce Tequila (Plata or Blanco)

2 ounces Passionfruit Juice (sweetened)

1 ounce Orange Juice

Shake all ingredients in shaker and serve up or on the rocks.

Seasons greetings fellow imbibers!  We’re coming into the end of the year and I hope everyone’s holidays are wonderful and full of love and jubilation.  It’s been a busy fall already at Mise en Place and we are in full holiday swing!  Please come see me for my Pear Cider-tini–great flavors that in tune with the season!

Lots to cover at the end of this year.  We had our 1 Year Anniversary this October (applause) and we celebrated with some new treats and old favorites.  The discussion was flavors and I wanted to showcase my new drink menu for the winter, so we tasted a few of my new concoctions that were definitely on the fringe of the palette.

First, we tried my new Bacon Bourbon.  Yes, you read right–BACON INFUSED BOURBON.  Proof that bacon is good in EVERYTHING.  The flavor profile is a mellow smokiness, with a little bit of savory and salty.  I have created a drink with it I call The Kentucky Breakfast.

The Kentucky Breakfast

2 Ounces bacon infused bourbon–I’m keeping this method close to my vest–come see me at Mise and I’ll tell you how to make it

Splash of fresh OJ

Splash of real maple syrup

Stir ingredients in a small shaker and pour into a highball glass.

I also have began infusing serrano peppers into a chocolate vodka to make a spicey and smooth chocolate martini I call Hot Chocolate.  Simply cut 3 serrano peppers and remove the seeds and add them to any vodka or tequila bottle for a spicy upgrade.

Hot Chocolate

3 Ounces Serrano Chocolate Vodka

1 Ounce homemade chocolate syrup (non-dairy)

Add items to a shaker and shake it the chocolate syrup breaks down into the vodka.  Pour into a martini glass.

Everyone really loved my Sangrita from our first meeting ever, so I made it again for our anniversary celebration.

Nate’s Milagro de poca sangre ”Miracle of Little Blood”

46 ounces tomato juice (plain/not V8–prefer Campbell’s Organic)

5 ounces blood orange juice

3 ounces simple syrup

2 ounces fresh lime juice

4 pureed serrano peppers

1/4 tablespoon salt

1 1/4 ounces of Milagro Tequila

Regular orange juice is an okay substitute if you mix it  with 1 ounce Grenadine.  Combine all the ingredients into blender EXCEPT the tomato juice and give the contents a few medium speed spins for a few seconds–long enough to dissolve much of the salt and peppers into the juice mixture.  Add tomato juice and give the blender ten more seconds on a lower setting to mix everything thoroughly.  Place in refrigerator for minimum of 12 hours so that the flavors marinate.  Serve in a shot glass as a chaser to your shot of tequila.

Also, I had a request for eggnog recipes.  Here 2 of my favorites:

Nate’s Boss Nog

6 eggs

6 ounces brandy

6 ounces spiced rum

3/4 cup of sugar

1 quart milk

1 pint cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Beat the eggs while adding the sugar as they mix.  Add the other ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Dust drink with nutmeg before serving.

Chef Guillermo Pernot’s Crema de Vie

1/2 teaspoons whole cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 cup water

3 tablespoon sugar

6 egg yolks

14 ounces sweetened condensed milk

15 ounces coconut milk

12 ounces evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-2 cups dark rum

In a saucepan, cook the cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and water until reduced by half.  Remove cinnamon and cloves.  Beat the egg yolks until creamy; add cooked syrup, milks, and vanilla.  Continue beating until combined.  Add rum to taste and place in a bottle or pitcher with extra cinnamon sticks and chill.

Everyone have a wonderful holiday and we’ll see you in 2010!!!

Cheers,

Nathan DeWitt

Bar Manager ~ MIse en Place

Wow, I can’t believe we’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the Mise Cocktail Club!  It’s been a fun year and I got some great stuff planned for the coming year.  Stay tuned for the official schedule of events.  If you’d like a sneak peek, please come join us on October 29th for our anniversary party.

September’s meeting was originally schedule to be Blowing Fire with Dave Madera, but due concerns about insurance and safety issues, we will have to reschedule that lesson at a later date–and at another bar and level of sobriety altogether.  So for September I decided to talk about craft beers.  We tasted beer from two Florida breweries and two California breweries and there were definitely some major differences.

Please check out the websites of all the breweries I mention here.  They all have some great info on them about all their products.

The first Florida beer we tried was from The Native Brewing Co. out of Ft. Lauderdale.  Their Native Lager is a smooth tasting lager made from German Hops, Malts and Yeast, which yields a very easy drinking light tasting beer.  A very good light palette beer–great for the hot dog-days of summer in Florida.

The second beer from Florida was from Lukaya Beers from the Florida Beer Company.  We tasted Lukaya Two Tail Pale Ale.  Again, a very light flavored Pale Ale, which is very typical to Floirda beer palettes.  I thought it was a little light for you typical Pale Ale drinker, but a good Pale Ale for the Florida heat.

The next few beers we tried were from California breweries.  The first brewery, Lagunitas, is a brewery I visited last summer in Petaluma, CA, which is located at the mouth of the Sonoma Valley.  Fun place to take a brewery tour! Lagunitas is known for their hop-forward beers, so we started with their pilsner which is simply called Pils.  This is pilsner is a great example of the differences in tastes and techniques between Florida and California breweries; Florida brews tend to be lighter and easier to drink, whereas Cali brews tend to be stronger and more hop-forward.  Lagunitas Pils is no exception, even for a pilsner-style the hop flavor is very apparent.  Lagunitas’ best selling beer in their India Pale Ale–I’ll let Lagunitas explain this like they only can:

This is our unique version of an ancient style. A style as old as the ocean trade routes of the last centuries Great Ships. Not as old as the equator they had to cross twice enroute, nor as old as the 10,000 or so miles of Di-Hydrogen Oxide and Sodium upon which they sailed, but older than the Circulithium-4 Lentloid that binds the Lupulin Quartnate onto your taste buds. Weird. Think about it. Now stop. OK, go again, now stop. Think again, and stop. But we digress. Made with 43 different hops and 65 various malts, this redolent ale will likely float your boat, whatever planet you’re on.

Lagunitas.com/beers/IPA

The next brewery is the face that launched a thousand beers for me as a self-proclaimed beer snob.  Stone Brewery of San Diego, CA has been making big, bold brews since 1996 and my first love of their’s is a beer called Arrogant Bastard Ale.  Great bold hoppiness and a slight sweetness.  Not a beer you wanna drink all day, but a great treat between brews (never drink the same beer twice).  I also decided to try their 13th Anniversary brew and we all around thought less of it than anything else we tried.  I think we all agreed it was too sweet and syrupy for us, but I think it was the only unsuccessful beer on the evening.

Cheers!

Nathan DeWitt

Bar Manager ~ Mise en Place

This month we here at the Cocktail Club took a step back from mixed libations and tasted some straight brown liquor.  Scotch is such a broad subject, it’s hard to cover everything with one tasting, but I put together this lesson plan as a Scotch 101 for novice and seasoned Scotch drinkers alike.  Scotch styles, like wine, depend on location and regional tastes, so I attempted to cover the major areas of Scotland and we tasted some of the lesser known Scotches out there.  With each distillery having their own individual rich history, one could easy spend 2 hours on an individual brand, but I tried to spread out the flavor profiles with a few of my choices.

* I accumulated much of this info from other online sources.

Scotch whisky–SOME DEFINING TERMS

Single malt – 100% malted barley from one distillery, distilled in batches in pot stills

Single grain – single distillery, water and malted barley w/ or w/o the frains of other cereals

Vatted malt (or pure malt) – blend of single malts, from more than one distellry

Blended grain whisky — mixing grain whiskies from more than one distillery

Blended Scotch whisky – mix of single malt and grain whisky, distilled at more than one distillery

Writings of the 1^st distillation were those of Friar John Cor, 1495

Single grain

The majority of grain whisky produced in Scotland goes to make blended Scotch whisky. The average blended whisky is 60%–85% grain whisky. Some higher quality grain whisky from a single distillery is bottled as single grain whisky. As of 2006, there are only seven grain whisky distilleries in Scotland.

Vatted / Blended malt

Vatted malt whisky—also called pure malt—is one of the less common types of Scotch: a blend of single malts from more than one distillery and with differing ages. Vatted malts contain only malt whiskies—no grain whiskies—and are usually distinguished from other types of whisky by the absence of the word ‘single’ before ‘malt’ on the bottle, and the absence of a distillery name. To qualify as a Vatted Malt, the mixed single malt whiskies are matured in the barrel for 1 year, after which the age of the vat is that of the youngest of the original ingredients. A vatted malt marked “8 years old” will include older whiskies, the youngest constituent was 8 years old before vatting.

Blended (heather & honey)

Blended Scotch whisky constitutes over 90% of the whisky produced in Scotland.  Blended Scotch whiskies contain both malt whisky and grain whisky. They were initially created as an alternative to single malt whiskies which were considered by some to be too harsh. Master blenders combine the various malts and grain whiskies to produce a consistent “brand style”. Notable blended Scotch whisky brands include Dewar’s, Johnnie Walker, Cutty Sark, J&B, The Famous Grouse, and Chivas Regal.

Dewar’s Distilleries

~Aberfeldy is the home of the Aberfeldy 12 and Aberfeldy 21 single malt Scotch Whiskies. The distillery is located where Perthshire’s highest mountain, deepest loch, and longest glen meet, and is historically and geographically the ‘Heart of Scotland’. ~Aultmore is located in a remote part of the Speyside region of Scotland. This distillery was purchased by John Dewar from Alexander Edwards in the 1920s. Around Aultmore, the Foggie Moss provides a water source for the distillery.

~Craigellachie is located in the whisky region of Spey and was founded in 1891. It stands on a hill overlooking the Rock of Craigellachie, the River Spey and Thomas Telfords’ single span Iron Bridge of 1815. The distillery uses a spring on Little Conval Hill as their water source.

~Macduff is located in the Speyside whisky region of Scotland and was founded in 1962. It is located on the ancient River Deveron and the distillery pulls its water from the Gelly Burn. Whisky has been produced here for centuries, with records dating back to the 1700s.

~Royal Brackla is located in the Highland region of Scotland and was the first distillery to receive a royal warrant. It is near Cawdor and Macbeth country. The distillery was founded in 1812 by Captain William Fraser. Royal Brackla draws its water from the Cowdor Burn.

 Dewar’s 12 is another blended Scotch Whisky that contains a mixture of different 12 year old malt and grain Scotch whiskies. Dewar’s 12 brand was first created by Dewar’s sixth master blender, Tom Aitkens. This particular blend uses the “marrying process,” which is an extra period occurring after the different blends from the various regions of Scotland have been combined. The blend sits in reserved oak casks, allowing the different flavours and aromas to harmonise in order to achieve the Dewar’s 12 blend. A.J. Cameron first pioneered this technique of lengthening the resting process in order to truly homogenize the different qualities of the various whiskies within the different blends. The palate of this particular blend has been characterized as “rich, fruity sweetness…with a hint of oak.

Chivas Regal is a premium Scotch whisky produced by Chivas Brothers, owned by Pernod Ricard. According to the bottle label it was founded in 1801 in Aberdeen, Scotland. The Chivas brand’s home is Strathisla Distillery at Keith, Moray in Speyside, Scotland.

Chivas Regal is one of the best selling premium whiskies in the world, available in over 200 countries. It is the best selling premium Scotch whisky in Europe and Asia Pacific and is rated one of the world’s most powerful spirits brands. Chivas Regal is one of the best performing spirits brands globally, with sales having grown by 61% between 2002 and 2008.

Chivas Regal whiskies are blended in a distinctive house style of a mellow, honeyed flavor.

~Chivas Regal 12 Year Old: Blended from whiskies matured for at least 12 years. A smooth whisky with a honeyed, mellow taste.

~Chivas Regal 18 Year Old: Blended from whiskies matured for at least 18 years. Chocolate and orange notes, some citrus and spice on the nose and a full, fruity, citrusy and spicy palate, with sherry notes to finish.

~Chivas Regal 25 Year Old: Created using whiskies aged at least 25 years; available only in limited quantities with a retail price of c$300. The blend has tasting notes of apricot and peach.

 Speyside + Balvenie – cask: bourbon, finishing type: sherry, port

 ~Speyside Single Malt, distilled in Strathspey (NE Scotland), home to Glennfiddich and Glenlivet (bourbon, finished in French oak) and more distilleries than any area in Scotland

~Speyside “heather-honeyish” flaor profile

~1893, first distillation

~2006 Intl. Spirits competition Gold medals, 6 gold, most ever

~PortWood 21 yr. – Gold & Best in Class 2009

Speyside + Aberlour – cask: bourbon, finishing type: sherry, bourbon

 ~Speyside - Aberlour is particularly influenced by its water source, flowing from Ben Rinnes, through the local peat and granite of the Lour valley and on to the distillery. It picks up scarce mineral deposits along its journey resulting in naturally soft water. This water is used in all stages of production, and lends Aberlour its smooth, delicate character.

~1826, fire-rebuilt 1879

Speyside + Strathisla– cask: bourbon, American White oak, finishing type: mainly bourbon

~Speyside - Originally founded in 1789 as the Milltown Distillery, is the oldest continuously operating distillery in Scotland. It was established by George Taylor, as an alternative to the waning industry of flax dressing.  In 1879, the distillery suffered terribly from a fire, but was rebuilt with a bottling plant. ~Acquired in 1942 by James Barclay of Chivas Bros.

Highland + Dalwhinnie

Dalwhinnie distillery, in the Highland village of Dalwhinnie in Scotland, produces Single malt Scotch whisky, classified among the Highland Single Malts. The distillery was founded with the name of the town it is near, Strathspey, in the late 1890s. The site was chosen for its access to clear spring water from Lochan-Doire-Uaine and abundant peat from the surrounding bogs. Set in splendid mountain scenery, Dalwhinnie is the highest distillery in Scotland. The name Dalwhinnie means meeting place, which refers to the meeting of ancient cattle drovers’ routes through the mountains.

In 1897, John Grant, George Sellar and Alexander Mackenzie founded the Strathspey distillery. Production started in 1898 but unfortunately the society was bankrupt the same year. The distillery was sold to A.P. Blyth in 1898 for his son who renamed it Dalwhinnie. Later, in 1905, the American Cook & Bernheimer took control over the distillery. The American distiller was looking for malts to produce blended whiskies for the American market. This is the very first American investment in the Scotch whisky industry. The American adventure continued until the prohibition in the United States in 1920, and the distillery returned to the Scottish fold by the buying up by Lord James Calder, shareholder of MacDonald Greenlees, a whisky blender. After MacDonald Greenlees has been taken over by the Distillers Company Limited, Dalwhinnie became part of another blenders group, James Buchanan, famous for his Black & White blended whisky.

A fire in 1934 stopped production for 3 years, and the reopening in 1938 was short-lived because the second world war brought restrictions on the supply of barley. Since reopening in 1947, the distillery has continued to operate through to the present day, although on-site malting ceased in 1968.

Dalwhinnie has become famous worldwide because it is marketed by its owners, United Distillers, under their Classic Malts brand, launched in 1988. Despite this, only 10% of the production is marketed as single malt, the remaining being used in the Black & White blends.

Highland + Dalmore

The Dalmore is a single malt scotch whisky distilled in Alness, Scotland, about 20 miles north of Inverness. The waters of the River Alness (River Averon), which runs through the village, are used to produce the Dalmore. Its location and flavour qualify it as a “Highland malt.”

The Distillery was established in 1839 by Alexander Matheson, a trader who made his fortune in illegal opium imports from the Far East. It sits on the banks of the Cromarty Firth overlooking the Black Isle, the “big meadowland,” from which it takes its name. The distillery was bought by the MacKenzie family in 1886.

It has been passed down that in 1263, a predecessor of the Clan MacKenzie saved King Alexander III from a rampaging stag whilst out hunting. In reward, the King allowed the him to bear the Royal emblem of a 12-pointed stag in his coat of arms. Recently, the MacKenzie motto Luceo non Uro or I shine, not burn has also been taken up by Dalmore. In a renewed effort to popularise the brand, the packaging was recently re-designed, which includes the addition of the Dalmore’s ‘twelve-pronged stag’ from the clan crest on each bottle.

The award-winning Dalmore Single Highland Malt Whisky Collection is matured in a wooden casks (either sherry wood or American white oak) which, along with the years and the climate, contributes to the flavour of each malt.

The Dalmore is aimed at both the mainstream and high-class markets. ‘The 50′ is the oldest, and most expensive, whisky sold by the distillery, and only available 10cl bottles, of which only 242 were produced. Alongside this is ‘the 40′ which won gold at the International Wine and Spirit Challenge Awards in both 2007 and 2008.

On the 15th April 2005, a bottle of 62 year old Dalmore was sold at auction for a record breaking £32,000. The blend was a mix of 5 casks, from 1868, 1878, 1922, 1926 and 1939. Only 12 bottles were produced

Lowland + Glekinchie

Glenkinchie lies, as the name might suggest, in a glen of the Kinchie Burn near the village of Pencaitland, East Lothian. It is situated about 15 miles from Edinburgh. The distillery is set in farmland. The name ‘Kinchie’ is a corruption of ‘De Quincy’, the original owners of the land. Its origins date back to around 1825 when it was founded by brothers John and George Rate. The original name was Milton Distillery. The brothers probably renamed it in about 1837. In 1969 the distillery stopped malting its own grain and the malting floors were turned into a museum of malt whisky.

The Glenkinchie label was relatively little known until 1989, when United Distillers started marketing it under their Classic Malts brand.

 The standard 10 year old Glenkinchie is a fairly typical lowland whisky in that it is fresh and light in character, with notes of lemon and cut grass. A sweet nose and a hint of peat make this a good introduction to the world of single malts.

The 14 year old Distiller’s Edition is double-matured in Amontillado sherry casks. The sherry flavour competes slightly with the freshness but does not overpower it.

Isley + Bowmore – cask: American oak, finishing type: sherry

 1779, means “great reef or sea rock”

The Bowmore Distillery was allegedly established in 1779 by a local merchant, John P. Simpson, before passing into the ownership of the Mutter family, a family of German descent. James Mutter, head of the family, also had farming interests and was Vice Consul representing the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and Brazil, through their Glasgow consulates. There are no records that pinpoint the date Mutter acquired the distillery from Simpson. Mutter would introduce a number of innovative processes to the distillery during his tenure, and even had a small iron steam ship built to import barley and coal from the mainland, and to export the whisky to Glasgow. A bottle of Bowmore Single Malt sold at auction in September 2007 for £29,400.

The distillery was bought from the Mutter family in 1925 by J.B. Sheriff & Co. and remained under their ownership until being purchased by Inverness-based William Grigor & Son, Ltd. in 1950.

The distillery, like most in Scotland, was mothballed during the World Wars, with the Bowmore Distillery hosting the RAF Coastal Command for much of World War II, Coastal Command operated flying boats from Loch Indaal on Anti-submarine warfare missions.

Isley (eye-LUH) - Bowmore Distillery sources as much barley as possible from on the island of Islay, however there are insufficient quantities produced to satisfy the distillery’s demand, and barley is also imported from the mainland. The distillery retains a traditional floor malting but this also lacks sufficient capacity and the barley imported from the mainland is normally already malted.

The distillery has an annual capacity of 2,000,000 litres, with fermentation undertaken in traditional wooden washbacks, before the liquid is passed through 2 wash stills and then through 2 spirit stills.

The waste heat from the distillation process goes to heat a nearby public swimming pool which was built in one of the distilleries former warehouses.

Morrison Bowmore bottles all whisky produced at Bowmore Distillery and their other distilleries at a facility in Springburn, Glasgow

 Isley + Lagavulin – cask: bourbon, finishing type: sherry

Lagavulin Single Malt is a single malt Scotch whisky produced at Lagavulin on the island of Islay. It has a powerful, peat-smoke aroma. It is described as being robustly full-bodied, well balanced, and smooth, with a slight sweetness on the palate.

The standard Lagavulin single malt is 16 years old (43%), though they regularly release a 12-year-old cask strength variety, Distiller’s edition, finished in Pedro Ximénez casks, as well as 25- and 30-year-old varieties. A recent 21-year-old bottling, matured solely in first-fill sherry casks, has been extremely well received by enthusiasts.  Lagavulin is produced by White Horse Distillers, which is owned by United Distillers & Vintners, which in turn is owned by Diageo plc. It is marketed under their Classic Malts brand.

The name of Lagavulin is an anglicization of the Gaelic lag a’mhuilin, meaning “hollow by the mill”.

Isley + Laphroaig –cask: bourbon 

1815, means “the beautiful hollow by the broad bay”

Laphroaig is considered one of the most strongly flavoured of all scotch whiskies, and is most frequently aged to 10 years, although the 15 and 18 year old varieties are common (the 27, 30 and 40 year olds however, are rare and expensive). In an attempt to re-create the taste of historic whiskies, Laphroaig carried out experiments. Recently the Laphroaig Quarter Cask has been introduced. By using smaller casks and by avoiding chill filtering, the Quarter Cask Single Malt is supposed to taste like the type of whisky that was distilled 100 years ago.

Until 2005, the standard 10 year old bottling contained an alcohol percentage of 43%, after which it was changed to the Scotch whisky standard of 40%.

Greetings fellow cocktail creatures,

Last month’s theme was a great introduction to an increasingly popular liquor from Brazil called cachaça (kah-SHAH-sah). It is a colorless liquor made from directly from the juice of sugar cane. Cachaça is regulated in the U.S. as rum, which technically is “any spirit distilled to less than 95 percent alcohol made from molasses, sugar cane juice or sugar cane syrup.”  For over 400 years, cachaça has been made by fermenting and distilling sugar cane juice and, unlike rum, the liquor is derived from the first press of the sugar cane plant, whereas rum is manufactured mainly from molasses.

Cachaça has been known to be a peasant drink, due to the large number of small distilleries that blanket Brazil.  There are over 4,000 small manufacturers of cachaça nationwide in Brazil, most producing artisanal versions of cachaça.  It is the third most distilled alcohol in the world, yet less than 1% is exported outside of Brazil. Typically served in Brazil’s national cocktail the caipirinha, cachaça is now looking at displacing rum, vodka and tequila in cocktails.  In 2005, cachaça overtook schnapps in Germany to become the 2nd most widely consumed distilled spirit and last year the winning cocktail at the U.S. National drink competition in San Francisco was made with cachaça.  Outside of visiting Brazil, most American bar patrons have never tasted cachaça.  I liken the flavor to a cross between rum and tequila.  The front notes are sweet, but as it lingers, it finishes with that tequila bite.

With the cachaça this month, I made two drinks based on the caipirinha, Brazil’s entry into the international world of cocktails. The first was a traditional version and the second a newer, summer version.

Traditional Caipirinha

1 1/2 ounces Brazilian Cachaça (Leblon or Sagatiba are great brands)

1/2 lime, quartered

Splash Sugar Cane or Brown Sugar Syrup (1 part sugar to 2 parts water) or Agave Syrup

Squeeze limes and add to shaker with ice, cachaça, and syrup.  Shake and serve in a highball glass.

Summer Caipirinha

1 1/2 ounces Brazilian Cachaça (Leblon or Sagatiba are great brands)

1/2 lime, quartered

3 leaves of fresh basil

1/2 ounce Strawberry Puree (1 pint fresh strawberries; washed, dried, stemmed and placed in a blender and liquifed.  Run liquid through a fine strainer if desired and sweeten with simple syrup or honey.)

Squeeze limes and add to a shaker of ice, cachaça, basil, and strawberry puree.  Shake and STRAIN into a champagne flute.  An extra-fine strainer might want to be used to remove small bits of the basil.

Batida (shaken)

Batida is Portuguese which means shaken or milkshake.  It is made with cachaça, fruit juice, or coconut milk, and sugar and can be blended or shaken with ice.  The most popular version is made with passion fruit juice, which is what I used.

1 1/2 ounces Brazilian Cachaça (Leblon or Sagatiba are great brands)

1 ounce passion fruit juice or nectar

Splash Sugar Cane or Brown Sugar Syrup (1 part sugar to 2 parts water) or Agave Syrup

Passion fruit juice tends to be very tart, especially if you are using a puree as opposed to a nectar.  Add some simple syrup to sweeten the juice or puree, but a nectar shouldn’t need any additional sweetening. Add the juice mix to a shaker with ice and cachaça, shake and serve in a highball glass.  Variations exist also using sweetened condensed milk or sour cream.

Sipping Rum

This month also marks my first venture a Mise en Place’s Bar Manager and one of my first orders of business was to start adding a few new top shelf rums our list.  We had been serving Cuban made/Dominican bottled Viscaya for years and it’s one of our favorites.  I also have begun serving Appleton Estate Rum from Jamaica, which is a very nice contrast.  Whereas Viscaya has a sweet finish, Appleton is very dry and more on par with a scotch or whiskey.  I wanted to show the difference too in the rum and cachaça.  Both made from sugar cane, but widely different final products!  Cheers!

Nathan DeWitt

Bar Manager ~ Mise en Place

Greetings Drink-a-saurus Rexes,

We’re into the dogs days here in Tampa and it’s hot enough out to fry an egg on a black car hood.  I can’t do anything outside without jumping in the pool to cool off every five minutes.  I’m also keeping cool with some fabulous drink recipes with an ingredient not thought of right away for most drink connoisseurs: sake.  Sake is a Japanese rice wine and traditionally served hot with your Japanese meal, but recently there has been a resurgence in better, “super premium” sakes.  One particular company, TY KU, caught my interest and I decided to not only use their sakes, but to check out their entire product line.  I brought in Rohit Patel to drop a little knowledge about what TY KU brings to the table for people who wouldn’t normally put sake in their Top 10 drink choices.  Ro has been working with TY KU to get some interest here in Tampa and for any info on TY KU, please check out their website.  I think they have some really good stuff on there about their company and products.  They seem willing to  disclose a lot, which is always a good sign.  They want you to know what’s IN their products.

Link to TY KU’s website: 

www.trytyku.com

Greetings fellow cocktail enthusiasts!  The wonderful spring air is upon us and the refreshing drinks of warm weather are being stirred next to pools and on porches everywhere.  The good times kick off when the first party fires up the grill and the unofficial summer fun begins.  This is my absolute favorite time of year.  As former Northerner you only had a small of window of time to enjoy the pools and most opened the weekend of Memorial Day, which also meant school was out soon and my birthday was coming up, so as a kid I was pretty much a ball of excited energy this time of year.  Who am I kidding?  I still am.  My pool has already seen it’s share of visitors and even though the thought getting old would mire some people’s good time, I’m resolute in the fact that having a good time is good for the soul—and is certainly not limited by one’s age.

With the good times come good drinks.  The theme this month was flavored vodka.  Historically, I had shied away from the flavored Absoluts, Stolis, and Smirnoffs of the world—mostly because of their overt chemically engineered flavors and attempts to mask tastes of the actual spirit.  But as a transplant from a colder region, I found that those brown liquors are a little hefty in the warm weather, so I started drinking vodka again, which I really hadn’t drank much of since college—and even then you’d have know me more for my loyalty to the throne of Crown Royale.

The reunion was quite sweet though.  My reintroduction to vodka began with Hanger One, a vodka made in Alameda, CA.  They infuse their straight vodka with Viognier grapes, but don’t think it’s grape-flavored—the infusion is quite subtle and really only noticed in the finish.  Where Hanger One shines though is with their fruit flavors—all naturally infused from the actual fruit and all quite exotic.  My favorite is their Kaffir Lime, a lime found in southeast Asia that tastes so limey that you want to INSIST that it’s fake.  The lime tastes like a green-lime popsicle and mixes great with tonic, soda, or 7-Up.  Hanger One also produces a Mandarin Orange vodka, a raspberry vodka from Fraser River, WA raspberries, a citrus vodka from a Buddha’s Hand citrus fruit, and a newly released spiced pear vodka and a re-release of their Alchemist’s Series chipotle vodka.  All of their products are craft distilled and pot-stilled the old way.  Check out their website: www.stgeorgespirits.com.

Another vodka we tried at the last meeting was a vodka local to Tampa called Touch.  It’s is produced by Big Dog Spirits in Ybor City.  Their straight vodka is infused with Tupalo honey from the Florida panhandle.  Touch also has a key lime vodka and a bitter orange vodka—and there are rumors of a possible locally made gin too.   The vodka is popular at your better local Tampal watering holes and restaurants.

Finally, I let everyone in on how to make an infused chipotle vodka at home.  It’s a lot easier than it sounds.  Below are the recipes from last month.

Cheers,

Nathan DeWitt

Head Bartender - Mise en Place

Mandarin Blossom Cosmopolitan

1 1/2 ounces Hanger One Mandarin Blossom Vodka

1/2 ounce cranberry juice

1 dash of orange blossom syrup (1 splash of orange blossom extract to 6 ounces of simple syrup)

Add ice to the vodka in a shaker with the cranberry juice and the syrup (in lieu of Triple Sec or Cointreau) and shake and then pour into a martini glass.  Enjoy!

Local Lime

1 1/2 ounces Touch Key Lime vodka

1 ounce Key lime syrup (sweeten to taste)

Add ingredients togther and shake for a great lime-ade cocktail!

The Devil’s Advocate

First you need to infuse straight vodka with some chipotle peppers.  Add one can of Embassa chipotle peppers to one bottle of plain vodka in a large glass bowel or pitcher.  Cover and let sit for 3-4 days.  Try not to agitate the vodka too much while it sits.  When straining, do your best to keep the solids close to the bottom and discard the vodka with the largest bits in it.  After running the vodka through a strainer, slowly pour the vodka through a coffee filter, again allowing the impurities to be removed.  I like to run it through a clean filter twice.  What you should end up with is a dark yellow spicy and smokey vodka that makes a killer margarita.

3/4 ounce of homemade chipotle vodka

3/4 ounce tequila (your choice)

Fresh made margarita mix (lime, lemon, orange juice, and sugar to taste)

1/4 ounce Cointreau or Triple Sec

Tablespoon Kosher salt

Pinch of ground chipotle powder

Add ice to half a shot of tequila and half a shot of your chipotle vodka.  Top with mix and Triple Sec and shake in a shaker and pour into a rimmed highball glass with the salt after adding the pinch of ground chipotle powder to it.  Enjoy!

Spring officially has sprung and it’s time to enjoy the nice weather with some tasty beverages. Because we want to enjoy these beverages in a clean environment and because Earth Day should be everyday, I decided to look into some more environmentally friendly products for this month’s theme: Organic Spirits. I was surprised by how many organic spirits are on the shelf and available online. There are easily two dozen different organic vodkas made here in the US. Most are reasonably priced ($19.99-$34.99), completely organic, and kosher. The vodkas also work to promote a different cause or environmental issue. There’s one that saves the ocean, one that saves the rain forest, and one that will plant a tree for you.  But how do these vodkas taste? Very good actually.  Most use organic white corn as their primary grain, so a few do have more sweet nodes then some people would prefer, but overall the straight vodkas are quite excellent. The organic vodkas do come in some interesting flavors–cucumber being a popular flavor found in two brands.  All the additional ingredients are organic too.   A few of these spirits have flourished with their interesting flavors.

I grabbed some info from various websites about some of the more popular organic vodkas:

CROP ORGANIC VODKA

Crop is a grain vodka made in Minnesota and made from certified organic grain and rather than tell you how many times it’s distilled, they distill it however much or as little as it needs to remove the impurities in the vodka. They also claim that their distillation is so efficient that no carbon treatment or carbon filtering is required.

It comes in three varieties. You have your standard vodka. You have your cucumber-infused (Gimlet!). You have your tomato-infused (Bloody Mary!)

SQUARE ONE ORGANIC VODKA

The brainchild of co-founder and CEO, Alison Evanow, Square One Organic Vodka is the first rye vodka produced in the United States that has a certified organic growing and fermentation process as the backbone of the spirit. The use of a purer distillate and an artisan view of distilling spirits results in a clean, earthy vodka that is a wonderful sipper, versatile mixer and a bottle that makes the environmentally conscious imbiber feel good.

Certified organic vodka, Distilled in small batches and it’s kosher as well.

Produced by a socially and environmentally conscious company with a female majority ownership.

Percentage of company’s annual profit is donated to environmental causes.

PRAIRIE ORGANIC VODKA

Certified organic and kosher, Prairie ($25-$45) is thoughtfully distilled from organic yellow corn and crafted in partnership with a co-op of over 900 Minnesota farmers. Besides getting a deliciously smooth drink, you also get the pleasure of knowing it’s probably the most eco-friendly item in your home. The fifth-generation owned Phillips Distilling Company take care all the way from the field to the bottle with Prairie. It’s packaged in a recyclable glass bottle, packed in a craft cardboard box made from sustainable forest wood pulp, and uses organic inks on the labels. Even corncobs and other leftovers are converted on-site to biogas energy for powering the stills. It’s just about enough to make you drink more.

ECO 360 VODKA

Eco-friendly, four times distilled, five times filtered. Each bottle comes with a swing top cap, which goes in a attached postage-paid envelope to be sent back to the factory. 360 reuses the tops and sends a donation to an “eco-friendly organization.” Labels made with 100% post-consumer waste paper. Revolutionary bottle consisting of 85% recycled glass (70% post-consumer glass).

Eco-friendly packaging and philosophy. Clean, smooth and light with a slight lavender nose and a hint of caramel and juniper on the finish. No major flavor profiles to distinguish it from the competition.

RAIN ORGANIC VODKA

Great value! Produced since 1996, Rain Vodka was one of the first in the organic spirits world. It is made from 100 percent organically grown Illinois white corn and is distilled at Buffalo Trace Distillery. But only since 2002 have they been making “Certified Organic” Rain Vodka in Franklin County, Kentucky.

Rain Vodka is a seven-times distilled, US made, award winning libation for discerning eco-cocktailers. Rain is small-batch distilled from 100% organically grown white corn grown exclusively on an Illinois farm. Rated ‘Superb’ by Wine Enthusiast magazine.

TRU SPIRITS

TRU: Radically Carbon Negative, Radically Revolutionary

TRU sets new standards for environmentally conscious products. From start to finish, TRU leaves the environment in better shape than we found it. TRU maintains clean farmland and groundwater. By using organic, ingredients that go into TRU don’t contain synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, or genetically modified organisms. TRU reduces waste and pollution through its exclusive use of lightweight bottles, recycled and recyclable materials and dual-use packaging (TRU shipping boxes convert into shelf displays for the product). TRU reverses environmental degradation by planting trees in the tropical zones of Central America and providing much needed support and training to local farmers.

TRU’s efforts are evaluated by independent organizations…so you know!

ONE TREE PER BOTTLE™ TRU - 760 times carbon negative

Arriving at the math requires experts and time, but the result is easy to understand: By making small changes, we can make a big difference in the environment. Consider, for example, that on average Americans produce 55 kilograms (kgs) of carbon dioxide every day. That’s our carbon footprint…one of the largest in the world.

By being efficient and careful in the manufacturing process and planting a tree a bottle, two ounces of TRU vodka—the amount in a standard cocktail—help remove 62 kgs of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So those two ounces of vodka don’t just eliminate your carbon footprint but help pull out an additional seven kgs of carbon dioxide from the air, where they contribute to global warming.

It’s a simple change but demonstrable proof that it is within our power to affect change and reverse the damage years of negligence and waste have caused. We are proud to be a part of the growing wave of people and companies who expect this to be business as usual.

RECIPES

Interesting stuff about the vodkas.  I definitely encourage you to try all the different organic spirits out there.  For this month’s meeting, I made 3 drinks.  The first was a Lavender Lemonade.

LAVENDER LEMONADE

1 1/2 OUNCES Rain Organic Lavender Lemonade Vodka

3 OUNCES Fresh Lemonade (lightly sweet)

1 DASH Lavender Syrup

Lavender Syrup: Steep 1/2 TSP dried lavender in 1/4 CUP of hot water.  Remove lavender and add 1/3 CUP sugar and mix until sugar dissolves.  Great in iced tea too.

Add vodka to a highball glass full of ice and top with lemonade.  Add a dash of syrup and mix well.  Top with a lemon wheel.

I wanted to showcase the flavor of one of the straight vodkas.  I picked the 360 Vodka based on some of my research and it didn’t disappoint.  I though it had a nice earthiness to it–and it was priced well at $19.99.  I also like the effort the company has made to reduce it’s footprint–a trend that’s not just for the wine world these days.

FULL TURN

1 1/2 OUNCES 360 Vodka

2 Marinated Olives

Add the vodka to a shaker full of ice, stir, and drain into a chilled martini glass.  Add two marinated olives AFTER your first few sips.  You want to savor the vodka essence before adding anything to it.

SMOKED BLACKBERRY MARGARITA

I hafta admit–I wanted organic tequila for this month and I couldn’t find any.  The only organic tequila right now is called 4-Copas.  I could not find it anywhere.  Apparently, Casa Nobles, a great higher-end tequila has applied for organic certification.  I’ll keep you posted on when that happens, but for now–we decided to make a infused tequila instead.

1 1/2 OUNCES Infused Tequila

1/2 OUNCE Aqua Perfecta Framboise Liquor

3 OUNCES Citrus Mix (lemon juice, lime juice, sugar syrup to taste)

2 Smoked Blackberries

Smoked sea salt for rim

Infused Tequila: Marinate 1 CUP fresh berries in 750 ml of white tequila.  Strain out fruit after 4 days and run the tequila through a coffee filter to remove any solids.

Add the tequila to a highball full of ice and top with framboise liquor and mix.  Add the two berries and shake well.  Rim glass with a mixture of regular sea salt and a pinch of smoked sea salt. To smoke the berries, I used a smoking gun to lightly smoke the blackberries with apple-wood.  Enjoy!

Til next month! Cheers!

Nathan DeWitt

Head Bartender ~ Mise en Place

I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring.  Last month’s topic was The Mojito and I put together 5 of my favorite recipes for the meeting–just in time for sippin’ them by the pool in the beautiful weather!  The drink has become quite popular these days and I have some really fun variations on this one to make it interesting and different all summer long!

The Cane Sugar Mojito

A traditional mojito is mixed with cane syrup as opposed to a simple syrup, which does add a slightly more rich flavor to the drink.  Just mix 2 parts of cane sugar w/ 1 part hot water and follow the basic recipe below.

1 1/2 Ounce White Rum

3 Mint Leaves

2 Wedges of Lime

Dash of Cane Syrup

Splash of Soda Water

Muddle the lime, mint, and syrup together in the bottom of a mixing tin or highball glass.  Add ice and rum and top soda water.  Give the mixture a good stir or a few turns in the tin and enjoy!

The Blackberry Mojito

Most any fruit can be added to a mojito for a twist–berries and tropical fruits work best.  Muddle the lime, blackberries, mint, and syrup together in the bottom of a mixing tin or highball glass.  Add ice and rum and top soda water or champagne for a twist.  Give the mixture a good stir or turn in the tin, lay back and enjoy.

The Cucumber Mojito

For this recipe, you’ll need to juice one or two cucumbers in a juicer.  Two cukes yield about 6-8 ounces juice.  Muddle the lime, mint, cucumber juice, and syrup together in the bottom of a mixing tin or highball glass.  Add ice and rum and top soda water.  Give the mixture a good stir or turn in the tin and top with some thinly sliced cucumber.  Very refreshing!

The Grilled Pinapple Mojito

Simply grill some sliced, FRESH pineapple until it gets a slight char on the outside and caramelizes.  Let the pineapple cool and muddle the lime, mint, pineapple, and syrup together in the bottom of a mixing tin or highball glass.  Add ice and a spiced rum and top soda water.  Turn the drink a few times in a mixing tin and serve with a paper umbrella. 

The Blender Mojito

For this recipe blended the mint, lime juice, and rum first.  I then strained out most of the mint and then added the ice and simple syrup and put everything back in the blender and mixed it until it was lightly chunky.  Pour the drink into a highball and top with soda or sparking water.  The drink tends to be very sweet and minty, so adjust the mint and syrup to taste.

Cheers,

Nathan DeWitt

Head Bartender ~Mise en Place

Greetings everybody on a blistery Florida Comin’ In Lika Lion March day!  It’s been a pulse-pounding first two months of the year for our great city and the nation as a whole !  Between the election of Barack Obama and the fiscal crisis to the Super Bowl (where MY Steelers won their 6th Ring–Go Steelers!) and Gasparilla, I’m finally seeing a bit of collective calm on the horizon for the coming spring!

Cheers to everyone who made it to last week’s meeting!  We had a blast talkin’ whisky (AND WHISKEY) because February’s theme was The Manhattan and The Old-Fashioned and tried a few different versions of these classic cocktails a few different ways.  We also talked about the differences between rye whisky, blended whisky, and bourbon and how their flavor profiles would alter the flavors of these two classic drinks.

Rye Whisky/Bourbon/Blended Whisky

In the U.S., rye whisky is, by law, made from a at least 51 % rye in the mash, whereas bourbon is 70% corn in the mash.  The other ingredients for rye mash include corn and malted barley and it is distilled to no more than 160 proof, then aged in charred barrels made of oak.  The typical grain mixture for bourbon is 70% corn and the remainder being wheat and/or rye, and barley.  Once the rye whisky ages two years, it can be designated as a straight rye whisky.  Prohibition all but decimated the popularity rye whisky in the northeastern part of the U.S., but of recent it is making a comeback with finicky brown liquor drinkers.

Blended Canadian Whisky is sometimes referred to as rye whisky, since most producers began making their whisky with a predominately rye mash, but now the amount of rye is minimal.  This is due to the fact that there never was a legal requirement to contain a specific amount of rye with labels that state “Canadian Rye Whisky” as long as the whisky “possess[ed] the aroma, taste and character generally attributed to Canadian whisky”.  These days, the corn to rye ratio can be as low as 9:1 and only a few larger brands contain rye at all anymore–Canadian Club, Crown Royal, and VO.

The Old-Fashioned–An OLD Cocktail

The first know use of the word “cocktail” actually comes from a repsonse to a reader’s letter asking to define the word in the May 6, 1806 issue of The Balance and Columbia Repository from Hudson New York.  The drink they’re a discussing is an early beverage known as the Bitter Sling, which is the basis for the Old -Fashioned.  The May 13th issue contained this quote from the editor:

“Cocktail is a stimulating liquor composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters — it is vulgarly called a bittered sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, inasmuch as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head. It is said, also to be of great use to a Democratic candidate: because a person, having swallowed a glass of it, is ready to swallow anything else.”

The Old-Fashioned is one of the six drinks listed in the 1948 classic guide The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks by David A. Embury.  Some places trade the whisky for bourbon (the South) or brandy (Wisconsin).  Here is a recipe from 1895 found in the Modern American Drinks: How to Mix and Serve All Kinds of Cups and Drinks, which specifies the following:

1. Dissolve a small lump of sugar with a little water in a whiskey glass
2. Add two dashes Angostura bitters
3. Add a small piece of ice
4. Add a piece lemon peel
5. Add one jigger (1.5 ounces or 44 mL) whiskey

Mix with small bar spoon and serve, leaving spoon in glass.

Of course the lemon can traded for an orange slice or lime, depending on your tastes.  Some people prefer a small amount of soda water also.  I don’t particularly care for that–nor does Robert Hess in his article  “Renewing an Old Fashion” at DrinkBoy.com–interesting read.  Check it out!

The Manahattan

The history of the Manhattan is rooted (of course) in uptown New York, where most histories put it originating at the Manhattan Club in the early 1870s where it was supposedly invented for a banquet for Winston Churchill’s mother Lady Randolph Churchill in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden.  The success of the party made the drink popular and, as they say, the rest is history.  However, there are references prior to that banquet to various similar cocktails in the Manhattan area, including one account that claims the drink was invented in the 1860s by a bartender named Black at a spot near Broadway and Houston Street.  Check out the article by Gary Regan in the September 21, 2007 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “The Manhattan project: A bartender spills his secrets on the king of cocktails”.

Here are some variations on this classic drink from Wiki:

• A Rob Roy is made with Scotch whisky.
• A Dry Manhattan is made with dry vermouth instead of sweet vermouth and served with a twist.
• A Perfect Manhattan is made with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth.
• A Brandy Manhattan is made with brandy rather than rye.
• A Metropolitan is similar to a brandy manhattan, but with a 3-to-1 ratio of cognac or brandy to vermouth.
• A Cuban Manhattan is a Perfect Manhattan with dark rum as its principal ingredient.
• A Latin Manhattan is made with equal parts of white rum, sweet and dry vermouth, and a splash of Maraschino cherry juice, served up with a twist.
• A Womanhattan is 1 part grenadine with 2 parts rye whiskey, served with a twist.
• An Uptown Manhattan is a name typically given to an upscale version of the drink with an establishment’s particular special touches, usually including a more expensive whiskey.
• A SoCo Man, or Southern Comfort Manhattan is made with Southern Comfort as the primary ingredient, and commonly used dry vermouth, as using sweet vermouth with Southern Comfort would often be considered an overdose of sweet; however, some people still like these made with sweet vermouth, as that is the tradition for a Manhattan.
• A Canadian Manhattan is made with canadian whiskey and generally has a sweeter taste.

The Lower East Side

Our version of The Manhattan at Mise en Place is a little different than any of the above

Steep Thyme (or Tarragon or Lemongrass) with your simple syrup (1 cup sugar to 1/2 cups water).  Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into your shaker with a nice amount (TBSP) of your syrup and add your brown liquor of choice.  Try different bourbons and whiskies to get your desired taste.  Enjoy!

CHEERS!

Nathan DeWitt

Head Bartender ~ Mise en Place