Zombie

A Hurricane would have been the drink of choice for Mardi Gras, but the local market didn't have passion fruit juice, so I got some pineapple juice and went for a rum alternative -- a Zombie.

It was appropriate enough because I've been binge-watching The Walking Dead, the cult-hit zombie series on AMC. It was predictable that my brother would like it -- hero a sheriff, lots of gun play -- but when our mild-mannered, Chevy Chase bridge partners also confessed their addiction, I knew I had to give it a chance. So I've been bitten.

Rum was the order of the day because I've been reading Wayne Curtis's And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. The book itself was a suggestion from a nice culinary travel article that appeared recently in the New York Times, "On a Caribbean Rum Trail" by Baz Deisinger. He is identified as a journalist and associate professor of English at John Jay Criminal College, go figure. Wayne Curtis is a contributing editor at The Atlantic who writes a regular column on the cocktail culture. What am I doing wrong?

The Curtis book is a well-written, entertaining account of rum, from its origins, presumably in Barbados, through now. He has a short list of premium rums at the end and, the point of this post, recipes for several rum cocktails.

The Hurricane is relatively simple, but requires passion fruit juice. The Zombie is the most complicated drink I've ever made, but, once I had the pineapple juice, I had all the ingredients. Curtis's version, which he credits to Don the Beachcomber, uses apricot liqueur instead of passion fruit syrup. He calls for 1 ounce white rum (Flor de Cana), 2 ounces amber rum (Mt. Gay), 1 ounce dark rum (Myers), 1 teaspoon simple syrup, 3/4 ounce lime juice, 3/4 ounce pineapple juice, 2 teaspoons apricot liqueur (Orchard), dash of Pernod, dash of angostura bitters. This all gets shaken and strained over ice, garnished, he says, with fruit, mint leaves and a dusting of powdered sugar.

I didn't fool with the garnish but managed to keep all the ingredients straight for the drink. It was of course very tasty, much like a Planter's Punch a bartender mixed for me on my first trip to New Orleans decades ago. I still think of rum as a summer drink, but it was nice enough on a cold winter night.

Harold Black

After our serendipitous dinner at Ambar recently, our friends decided we had to cap the evening with a visit to the "speakeasy" across the street from Eastern Market. And truly, neither the outside door nor the door to bar itself ("knock for service" was all it said) gave any indication there was a bar.

Good thing, because it was hard enough to get into. The relatively small space was just the right combination of chic and cozy. Sitting at the small square bar with a view into the lounge was the perfect perch to enjoy the energy in the place. My cocktail of barrel-aged gin and bitters was a complex and satisfying drink, though perhaps too medicinal for some. The Finch Brewery Fascist Pig beer they served in a can was outstanding.

The bar is attached, at least by the staircase and interior entry, to the restaurant Acqua al 2, which our friends say is an excellent Italian. We were able to conjure an entry into the speakeasy because our friend, having ascertained that Ralph, the manager, was present, used his name freely. However, it is possible to reserve a table through cityeats.

Osocalis Rare Alambic Brandy

The explosion of craft distillers in this country is truly amazing, and the availability of a brandy as smooth and flavorful as the Osocalis Rare Alambic Brandy makes it easier to accept that the Chinese are buying up all the Cognac.

This brandy was recommended to me at Weygandt's, which makes a real effort to stock craft spirits. The distillery, near Santa Cruz, describes itself as a second-generation of American craft distillers combining Old World techniques with New World fruit. They imported the alambic still from Charentes, but the grapes are local Pinot Noir, Colombard and Semillon. In fact, they explain on their website, American distillers have an advantage over French producers because they can blend different varietals to get the flavor they want, unlike the strictly delimited appellations in France.

In any case, this brandy, one of the 1,800 bottles produced in Lot No. X, is exquisitely smooth, not sweet but graceful enough to make you think so, with hints of spice in the background. It is great in a snifter, after a meal, or anytime, really.

Mockingbird Hill

It's great to have a bar in DC specialized in sherries and cured ham, but Mockingbird Hill also betrays the flaws in a food culture that is far too precious. There's no reason why you should have to spend $40 for a total of 6 ounces of booze and snacks hardly plentiful enough to make your stomach growl.

The sherries were great. Unfortunately, MH doesn't have a website with a menu and I didn't take notes, so this is a bit vague. I started with a glass of fino en rama (meaning from the cask, I was told) that might have been two ounces. It was dry, crisp, with that indefinable "sherry" taste. I then had a flight that included a fino, an oloroso, and a dark, syrupy version described as a dessert wine. The oloroso stole the show for me and I will explore this category further. The serrano ham was good, and the sampler of American hams was excellent. A little plate of three tiny octopuses was fine. The snacks were all shared and the price above only includes my share.

The music, apparently punk rock, was obnoxious, the table uncomfortable, the service about what you'd expect. Barrio gotico it isn't, of course, but one would hope that these efforts to bring slices of European food culture to the U.S. would be to bring some of the comfort and generosity, rather than such carefully measured, overpriced dollops.

A dinner at the nearby Bistro Boheme was much more satisfying, yet even here it was an uncomfortable cross between European comfort and American chic. My braised pork with knoedel and sauerkraut was quite nice, the Pilsner Urquell on draft was great. The server must have been in training but he managed all right.

Burritt Room

Tricked out like a speakeasy, the Burritt Room was a welcome oasis after flying 6-some hours from DC and tramping through the streets of San Francisco in the hot sun. There was jazz, there were cushy seats, there were great signature cocktails -- starting with the Berlinetta, a mix of bourbon, cynar, Carpano antica, and orange bitters that makes for a relaxing and complex drink.

We stayed at Charlie Palmer's Mystic Hotel off Union Square largely because of the Burritt Room. Our second evening there, we sat at the bar and had a chance to talk with Josh Trabulsi, the head bartender and creator of the Berlinetta and other signature drinks. He was embarrassed that Serious Eats said the Berlinetta was a mix of rye and boubon ("Makes me look like an idiot"). He explained that he like Four Roses Yellow Label for the drink because it was a bit rougher and more robust than some other bourbons. We discussed how hard it is to find in stores because of its checkered past -- consumers are not ready to recognize its return to serious bourbon-making -- but he said it was doing a roaring business with California restaurants.

I tried a couple of the other cocktails -- the passably good Poquito Picante (a margarita-style drink with tequila blanco, Aperol, lime, and a house serrano tincture) and a very forgettable cocktail of the month. Trabulsi was clearly passionate about his work and still working very hard mixing drinks. It was interesting to me that he scrupulously measured every ounce and used a sip straw to test each drink, much as had my Claridge's bartender. Also interesting was the ice used in each drink -- a single large cube for the Berlinetta, a glass full of normal cubes for the Poquito Picante -- all helpfully pictured in the menu. I take it that the single large cube is for Sazerac-style drinks that might normally be served without ice, and the big cube minimizes dilution.

Byrrh

This spicey wine-based aperitif is fine by itself, over ice, and a nice alternative to higher-proof drinks before a meal. But this formerly obscure French concoction is also enjoying a resurgence in craft cocktails.

Somehow an original cocktail from a site called Kindred Cocktails looked more convincing to me than some of the standard recipes for a Byrrh cocktail. This one, called Byrrhlesque, and attributed to Ron Rovner in Portland, Maine, calls for 1-1/2 ounces bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve), 3/4-ounce Carpano Antica vermouth, 3/4-ounce Byrrh, 1 barspoon Luxardo maraschino, and 2 dashes orange bitters, mixed in a shaker over ice, and strained into a glass with ice.

The drink was smooth, balanced, complex with notes of spice from all three liquors -- a real treat! It seemed to address some of the issues with classic Byrrh cocktails, which tend to use dry vermouth, with complaints of the whiskey overpowering the subtlety of the Byrrh (though clearly the choice of bourbon or rye will make a difference).

A real keeper!

Aperol ascendant

After drinking Aperol spritzes everywhere during our trip to Italy, I came home to Saveur magazine offering me another Aperol cocktail from Hawaii. This drink comes from Monkeypod Kitchen in Ko Olina, outside Honolulu, and is called the Ho'opono Potion.

It looked to me like a variation on a Margarita but it actually tastes quite different. It starts with muddling three cucumber slices with 1 ounce of lime juice. Add 1-1/2 ounces silver tequila, 3/4 ounce sugar syrup and 1/2 ounce Aperol. Shake with ice, strain into old-fashioned glass filled with ice (they say single large ice cube), and garnish with a cucumber slice.

It is surprisingly tart, as the sugar syrup just balances the lime juice. The Aperol enhances the tequila, but the agave flavor comes through loud and strong. The muddled cucumber may add a vegetable undertone but there's no pronounced cucumber taste. I liked it better than I though I would and found it very refreshing.