Bitter About Flowers

Welcome to Mixology Monday! Okay, you caught me. Today is actually Tuesday. I waited until the eleventh hour to write my post, and then company showed up and we drank a bottle of 2009 Cotes Du Rhone instead. As a result, my writing skills rapidly deteriorated into giggles and yawns. Hazelnut coffee in hand, I begin my belated post a day late and a bottle of wine lighter.

Hosted by Dave at The Barman Cometh, this month's Mxmo topic is floral cocktails. Rhubarb is NOT a flower, so despite the fact that I just picked fifteen pounds of it and will start shaking up Rhubarb Martinis at the Lounge tonight, rhubarb is not what I am going to write about.

I am also not going to write about violets, though I spent an hour picking them yesterday. They are destined to become violet syrup, and eventually a blueish cocktail of some sort.

And I'm not writing about the exploding purple lilacs in my yard. Stunning and tasty as they are, for now I'm simply going to snort them, and maybe float a few in a drink as garnish.

Instead, the topic of my post is lavender bitters. Leah started making her own bitters a few summers ago: orange bitters, coffee bitters, lavender bitters and soon: rhubarb bitters. Usually I don't like lavender in my beverages because I feel like I'm drinking massage oil or lotion, but the lavender scent dances gracefully with the already floral essence of gin, turning an everyday drink into a culinary delicacy.

When it comes to the commercial stuff, I'm bitter about bitters: There is absolutely no reason to include the artificial and potentially harmful caramel color (Peychaud's, Fee Brothers, Angostura), Red #40 (Peychaud's, Fee Brothers), or Yellow #6 (Fee Brothers). And bitters that are chemically produced in a factory down the street from you are NOT "locavore." You drive me crazy when you buy a bottle of mass-produced bitters from the Super Walmart and proclaim them "locavore." You want locavore? I'll give you locavore upside your head. Bring it on.

As soon as we mow the lawn, plant mint, stack the wood, fix the windows, replace the ice machine, build new porch benches, install stair lighting, repair the brick steps, and clean out the gutters, we're going to start bottling our own bitters. Get ready: we're bitter and we can make it better.

In the meantime, you can dream about this lavender gin and tonic, but if you want to taste it, you'll have to come to Felicia's:

Lavender Gin and Tonic

1.5 ounces gin

2 dashes of lavender bitters

tonic

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add gin and bitters. Top with tonic. I know, you don't have our lavender bitters - yet. Bookmark this page, drop by to stack some wood, and give us a few months.

Save the date! Rapture Party 5/21/11 from 6pm-close at Felicia's Atomic Lounge. I'll be live twittering the rapture, too. Follow me on twitter at @ameliasauter

Wood Pairing

Dear Felicia,

I know spring is filled with all kinds of great stuff like planting herbs and watching flowers bloom, but I just got a shit-ton of firewood delivered (shit-ton [shit tuhn] - noun 1: five cords; 2: 4ft by 8 ft by 20 ft pile of wood). I'd like to know what alcohol you recommend pairing with this task.

Signed,

I Want to be Stacked

Dear Stacked,

You are definitely going to want a drink for this job. Think wood. A high-end bourbon, a smoky scotch, a nicely-oaked chardonnay, or a tannic cabernet saugivnon. Or go rugged and do a couple of shots of Jim Beam; that's one of my work boot favorites. Beer also pairs well with wood. There are some great scotch ales on the market, like Oksar Blues Old Chub. If it's raining, consider a boilermaker.

You're going to need all the help you can get.

Love,

Felicia

Mixology Monday: Tomato Zinger

I am so excited that it is Spring. Please reassure me it's not going to snow again so I don't impulsively buy a plane ticket to Cancun where I can suck in tropical sun and tropical cocktails until I explode into a million droplets of warm joy.

Because Felicia's likes to use raw materials in our cocktails, Spring is a critical time of year for us and for our favorite farmers at Tree Gate Farm. This weekend, I cut back the mint and oregano, and planted a bunch of rhubarb roots to meet your unquenchable demand for Rhubarb Martinis. We transformed over 20 lbs of rhubarb from Tree Gate into martinis last May! I'm feeling piggish as I reminisce, and must confess to you that I found a pound of last summer's rhubarb in the freezer yesterday and cooked it with some sugar, then proceeded to eat it all right out of the pot. Forgive me. I'm sorry I didn't share. (Okay, I'm not sorry. If I found another pound right now, I still wouldn't share it. Seriously, Rhubarb and I are monogamous.)

As we dive face-first into Spring, Mixology Monday this month is hosted by Spirited Remix. Chris asked everyone to post about their all-time most amazing cocktail creation, and later this week he will put all of those cocktails on his website so head over there to check it out.

I'll be honest with you, I'm not a great cocktail maker. When it comes to our fresh philosophy, Leah is the one who you'll find in the kitchen making something unusual with coriander syrup or cucumbers or whole vanilla beans or fresh horseradish or wild ramps or lovage from a neighbor's garden. I'm more tame in the cocktail creativity category, and content to be her taste-tester.

But a couple of summers ago, I actually created one drink that I fell truly, madly, and drunkenly in love with: the Tomato Zinger. Since it requires fresh-picked cherry tomatoes, I tend to forget about it in the winter. Last week, however, Leah and I taught a cocktail class at Tompkins Cortland Community College and played a version of Chopped that we called Shaken. We asked the students to create cocktails using three required ingredients: cherry tomatoes, rosemary, and limes. All the resulting drinks were delicious, but I was left pining for summer and for another hot affair with the Tomato Zinger.

Don't tell Rhubarb I'm cheating on her.

Felicia's Tomato Zinger

5 small Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes
pinch of sea salt
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce honey syrup (equal parts honey and water)
1 3/4 ounces gin

Muddle four cherry tomatoes, sea salt, honey syrup and lemon juice. Add gin and shake with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with the remaining cherry tomato.

Craft Cocktails

When I hear 'craft,' I think feathers. Beads. Pipe cleaners. Felt. Sock puppets. What the hell is a craft cocktail?

The adjective 'craft' does, in fact, refer to cocktails that are handmade, though not with a glue gun. In 2006, a smart bartender guy named Camper English made a list of some of the elements that he believed earned a drink the title 'craft cocktail' in San Francisco:

• fresh juices
• muddled fresh ingredients
• seasonality
• cocktail-food pairing
• fancy shmancy mixers instead of el cheapo soda guns
• infusions
• homemade ingredients, like syrups or bitters
  
• an actual drink menu

If the craft cocktail is vintage or classic, it's extra cool. If it has a good name, like the Horny Ninjarita, it's extra-extra cool. If it contains bacon, it's extra-extra-extra cool.

Beware. Like hipster fashion choices, some of those craft cocktails are overrated. Many of them can't be created at home unless you quit your day (night) job, invest in weird ingredients, build a complicated home bar, and install a commercial kitchen.

And seriously: Have you actually tasted a drink with bacon and liked it? Or even more telling, liked it enough to have seconds? The idea is fun, but in reality, not so good. Just like hipster eyeware and men with skinny jeans: Those giant eyeglass frames and teeny pants that sag in the manbutt might be interesting style concepts, but they both look pretty comical when you put them on. In twenty years, your kids will be laughing at you, not with you.

Fresh is good; handmade is awesome. Sock puppets rule. But don't go overboard. Glue guns can be addictive, and your craft obsession can quickly grow out of control and take over your life. STAY AWAY FROM PLASTIC FLOWERS. And never get so snobby about your drinks that you can't enjoy a Natural Light beer when your neighbor offers you an ice cold can.

Happy New Year: Beets and Drinks and Drunks

A new floor for a new year

My mom sent me an email last week to let me know Felicia's made Rochester's daily paper again. The topic this time was drinks without alcohol.

This is a hard one for me. I find it's not possible to re-create the flavor of bourbon or gin without, well, bourbon or gin. If I'm not imbibing alcohol, I go for simplicity. Give me some plain seltzer water and I'll be happy. Leah bought me a home soda machine for Christmas and I shrieked like a little kid when I opened it. A box full of happy for only $99.

When the writer for the newspaper contacted us, Leah and I suggested substituting sparkling cider or sparkling grape juice for champagne in mimosas or mimosa-like drinks. The writer was drawn to our spiced beet bubbly, and said:

This recipe came to us by way of Amelia Sauter of Felicia's Atomic Lounge in Ithaca, where seasonal, locally grown ingredients are on the bar with the booze. In winter, that means Finger Lakes beets. Even if you are a fan of beets (which Sauter was not before her cocktail chef Leah Houghtaling changed her mind with this concoction), roasting them and then making a simple syrup with them is a lot of work. Double or triple the syrup recipe and save some for later. It will stay fresh in the refrigerator for at least a week.

I love how Leah is called "my" cocktail chef. I'm a lucky girl, aren't I? I own a cocktail chef AND a soda machine. Truth be told, Leah is the creative force behind Felicia's and I am her devoted pawn who also happens to answer all emails and media requests. But the best part is that I get to taste-test all of her concoctions. It's also true that until the spiced beet bubbly, the only beets I ever loved were the ones specially prepared by my mother.

Here's a link to the full article on non-alcoholic bevvies in the Democrat and Chronicle:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=201012280304

Happy new year and don't drink and drive like this passerby who flipped his car outside the Lounge on New Years Eve:


And to answer both of your questions:
1) No one was hurt.
2) Nobody, including the driver, seems to be able to satisfactorily explain how exactly he ended up upside down in the middle of the street.

Dog of Christmas and White Cosmopolitan

We are open on Christmas eve from 4pm-midnight. If you want to mix up some holiday spirits at home to numb your nerves to the chaotic family antics, spike your eggnog, Felicia-style. Or try my friend Tony's White Christmas Cosmopolitan, as pretty as it is yummy:


White Christmas Cosmopolitan

1.5 ounces vodka
1/2 ounce triple sec or Cointreau
1/2 ounce sweetened lime juice - Don't use Rose's - our recipe is here.
1 ounce white cranberry juice
fresh cranberries

Shake all liquid ingredients with ice. Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a few floating cranberries.

(Christmas card brought to you by Eesah the Lounge dog and Amelia's precious black Sharpie).

Mixology Monday: Like That? You'll Love This!

This month's Mixology Monday is brought to you by eGullet, an online forum where people chat about culinary stuff. The theme, "Like That? You'll Love This!" sounds kind of like a game show: You could win this dishwasher, or you could win (dramatic reveal by blonde model) A BRAND NEW CAR!

I don't have a recipe for you. I'm sitting in my underwear in front of the blazing fire, drinking cheap red wine, and waiting for the lake effect snowstorm that seems to be arriving fashionably late this evening.

However, Leah, also drinking cheap red wine though more tastefully clad in a fluffy white bathrobe, would like to offer her two cents:

"You want a Midori sour? Try this shot of Bookers bourbon!"

During our particularly hair-raising psycho-busy bartending shifts this summer, doing shots of Bookers became a trend for the bartenders on duty (specifically, the Friday Happy Hour staff, but I'm not naming names), almost a game, to see who could throw it back fast and keep a normal expression as it set their mouth-throat-stomach-loins on fire. I must admit, a little Bookers certainly takes the edge off a rough shift.

A feat which a Midori sour cannot claim.

The statement, "Like Midori sours? Then you'll love a shot of Bookers!" is probably a lie, and is bound to be followed by cries and laments of angry mobs of villagers wielding torches and demanding the surrender of the monster.

Bring it on. Just give me a second to do a shot of Bookers first.

Mixology Monday: Gin Sangaree

This month's Mixology Monday was a little tricky: write about a Forgotten Cocktail. Hey, wait a darn minute, Rock & Rye wiseguy. If I've forgotten a cocktail, how can I write about it? And frankly, since my brain turned 40 (which actually happened when the rest of my body turned 35), I can't even remember how to make a Sex on the Beach. Which is probably good, because those kinda suck.

Mr. Boston Deluxe Official Bartender's Guide, 1974 edition to the rescue. Because I have an aversion to books that smell like wet basements, I don't have any old cocktail books in the house except this one, which belonged to my parents and is complete with their hand-written recipe notes on the inside front and back covers.

To find a "forgotten cocktail," the re-publication of which might change the world of modern spirits forever and provide me with fame and excessive wealth, I paged through the guide. It appears that there are only eight unique recipes in the entire book of 1000+ drinks, all of which contain one or more of the following ingredients in slightly differing ratios: Mr. Boston's brandy, apricot brandy, triple sec, vermouth, scotch, gin, grenadine and lime. And many of which deserve to remain forgotten.

I found one cocktail that I had not previously heard of that included an interesting non-Mr. Boston ingredient: The Gin Sangaree.

You know my distaste for history, so I'm sure you'll appreciate the huge 45-second effort I spent researching sangaree on the internet. Sangaree comes from the latin word for blood and refers to the inclusion of port wine in the cocktail.

With the holidays approaching, this cocktail choice serves up a hint of festive, with a shy dash of nutmeg weaving together the flavors of the port and gin. Because the Gin Sangaree is light, you can savor it before dinner as the port and nutmeg stimulate your appetite. Because it's slightly sweet, it is also effective as a post-dinner sipper.

But is it memorable? Well, I remember liking it last night. Ask me again in six months and we'll see.

Gin Sangaree

2 ounces Gin
1 tablespoon port wine
1/2 teaspoon powdered sugar
1 teaspoon water
club soda
nutmeg

Dissolve sugar in water by stirring, and add gin. Pour into highball glass filled with ice. Top with club soda, and float port wine on the top.

Authors note: F*ck floating the port. I can never make sh*t float. Which is probably my fault, but I'll tell you what, that port looked to me like it weighed as much as a f*cking rock compared to the soda-gin-sugar which was half-comprised of carbonated weightless air bubbles. And if you can float the port, I hate you. I'll bet you can light lemon zest on fire, too. Showoff.

For a roundup of the "Forgotten Cocktails" posted on renowned cocktail blogs all over the world today in celebration of Mixology Monday, visit Rock & Rye.