From Garden to Glass: The Deserted Island

Cantaloupe + coconut milk = great cocktails AND great popsicles

When I was growing up, my dad grew all of our family's vegetables. In the summer, we snacked as we picked, before we even washed the dirt off:  Sweet carrots. Spicy radishes. Snappy green beans. Bright red cherry tomatoes that we tossed up in the air and caught in our mouths and somehow managed not to choke to death. My mother would load a wagon with club-sized zucchini and send my brother and I door-to-door to attempt to give them away. When my dad would walk into the house with an armful of fresh-picked produce, he'd always announce to no one in particular, "Bounty of the garden!"

So much to eat, so little time. By mid-September all the bounty will be petering away and all we'll have left is apples and concord grapes and beets. Until then, we're turning as much as possible into cocktails at Felicia's. We haven't come up with anything for the zucchini yet, but here's a few other locavore cocktails that made it onto our menu this week:

Twilight Mary: green coriander-infused vodka, tomato juice, and lavender lemonade with a salt rim.
Plum Manhattan: plum-infused brandy, violet liqueur, cognac, and a dash of Angostura bitters. 
Peach Sour: bourbon, fresh peach syrup, and a splash of housemade sour.

And one with a recipe:

The Deserted Island (almost known as 'Sex in a Hammock,' but the bartenders shot that idea down)

3 ounces pureed cantaloupe (rind removed)
1.5 ounces coconut milk
1.5 ounces rum
pinch salt

Fill a double rocks glass with ice. Add all ingredients. Toss in to shaker and back again to mix. Garnish with a lime wedge.

It appears the right one is significantly bigger than the left. Not an uncommon occurrence. 

What We're Drinking Now

beet graphic by Leah Houghtaling © 2012

Beets and Grapefruits

It's hard to be a locavore in the middle of winter. We could make boozy sno cones, but we haven't even had any snow to speak of this year. Global warming cometh.

This winter, our beets are from Stick and Stone Farm, which is a few miles up the road. Our spiced beet syrup is great with champagne, tequila, vodka, everything. But not with your white shirt. Watch out.

In lil' ol' Ithaca we can buy almost any produce we want from farms within ten miles of the Lounge. Except citrus fruits, but with how crazy warm this winter has been, I think we could be growing them soon. For now we'll have to get our Florida grapefruits for our fresh-squeezed grapefruit cocktails at the grocery store.

Rye

Leah's latest infusion? Caraway seeds in vodka. Smells like fresh-baked rye bread. We're still tweaking recipes, but stop by the Lounge to taste-test our latest cocktail, Carried Away. The caraway vodka is combined with fresh-squeezed grapefruit (of course), and lavender syrup. An incredible, unexpected joining of flavors.

And a non-caraway kind of rye is in the house: Bulleit Rye Bourbon. The bartenders are practically shooting it up. Even Abby made a cocktail with it - without Midori or Peach Schnapps! Our little Abby is growing up...

Catcher in the Rye

2 oz. Bulleit Rye

3/4 oz. Pimm's

1/4 oz. simple syrup

1/4 oz. lemon juice

lemon twist

Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Chartreuse

We bought a bottle of Chartreuse after a period of abstaining from weirdly colored herbal liqueurs, and the bartenders have gone ga-ga for it. Here's a drink that has been wildly popular this week:

The Gypsy

1.5 ounces gin

3/4 ounce St. Germain

1/2 ounce Chartreuse

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

lime wheel

Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Beer

Rooster Fish Black IPA

Southern Tier Eurotrash Pilz

Wine

Jelu Malbec

Ports of New York's Meleau Semi-Dry

Flight of the Concord

This month's Mixology Monday topic, hosted by Alcohol Alchemy, is Local Color. Usually I'm anal retentive about following the Mixology Monday instructions each month, so I made sure our cocktail used local ingredients, and it sure is colorful.

Except after Leah created the drink and took an awesome photo, I realized my rebel side once again shoved my straight-and-narrow side off a speeding train. I did not start with a local craft spirit as instructed. Oops.

I haven't always been this impulsive, really. Okay, maybe I have, but I'm still firmly in denial, so I'll blame Leah.

Here's the story: We belong to a most excellent local fruit CSA this year (after swearing off vegetables when the veggie CSA forced one too many parsnips upon us). In this week's basket, we received peaches, plums, pears, apples, and concord grapes.

Grapes. Yum. But they're kind of tart, and the skins get stuck in your teeth, and they have annoying seeds. No way I was going to labor to take all the seeds out and make a pie, appealing as the end result might be.

Then in came Leah. And out came the ball jar. In went the grapes and gin. Out came the muddler.

Minutes passed: The gin turned a peaceful lavender. Hours later: A ball jar full of deep bruised purple. The next day: The Concordian took flight.

[In retrospect, obviously I'd use a local gin to follow the Mixology Monday rules. The most popular gin made in the Finger Lakes region of New York (maybe the only gin? i've yet to hear of another) is Finger Lakes Distilling's Seneca Drums Gin. I've written about their gin before, in both cocktail form and via a general review. And we've showcased their cherry liqueur, which hands down is our favorite FLD product at the Lounge. You can read more about Finger Lakes Distilling HERE.]

The Concordian

1 1/2 ounces concord grape-infused gin*

tonic

lime wedge

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add grape-infused gin. Top with tonic. Garnish with a lime.

*Concord grape-infused gin:

1 lb Finger Lakes concord grapes

32 ounces gin

Muddle and let sit for 24 hours. Strain.

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.

Black Raspberry Cocktail for the Fourth of July

Wild black raspberries ("black caps") are ripening just in time for the Fourth of July. The creekbed by our house is filled with the juicy things, plenty enough to share with the birds and the feral children who raid the bushes, the same children who were "playing" in the creek when it was at flood level. Apparently, they have no parents.

Our fingers are stained red with berries, and our mouths are happy. Special thanks to Tree Gate Farm so we can spend more time mixing cocktails than picking berries.

Leave out the vodka to make this a virgin cocktail for wussies and kids.

Black Cap Sparkler

1 1/2 ounce vodka
1/8 cup black raspberries
1 mint leaf
1/2 lime wheel
2 teaspoons sugar
club soda
mint sprig

In a pint glass, muddle vodka, berries, mint, lime and sugar. Add ice. Top with club soda. Toss into a shaker and back once or twice to mix.

Happy Independence Day!

Saving Basil

I can't believe that it went to down to 43 degrees on Monday night. At midnight, when the thermometer hit 45 degrees, I snuck out to the garden with a lantern to harvest some basil for fear that there would be damage.

The good news is that I needed to harvest some anyway, and the even better news is that the morning revealed that the damage was minimal. Literally only a couple of leaves turned brown.

Since the basil only started producing prolifically a few weeks ago due to our cold, wet summer, I'm glad we're going to have a few more weeks of life with it.

I wonder when it's going to frost this year? Usually we have a hard frost the third week of September, but last year it was well into October before there was any significant frost. By then, we were so tired of mojitos that it was good to see the mint go.

OK, big fat LIE. The mint, hardy as ever, lived until January. But we were damn tired of muddling so we took mojitos off the menu.

For now, though, while it's still kinda sorta summer, feel free to pig out on mojitos and basil-infused vodka.

Peach Basil Cocktail

Peaches are one of my favorite local summer fruits. Bourbon is one of my favorite liquids of all time. Basil is one of the best herbs on the planet. Shit. Might as well whirl them all up together and stick 'em in a beverage:

Peach-Basil Cocktail

1 1/2 ounces Woodford Reserve bourbon
3 ounces peach-basil puree (see below)
splash of club soda
basil leaf

Shake bourbon and peach-basil puree with ice. Serve unstrained on the rocks with a splash of club soda. Garnish with a basil leaf.

Peach-Basil Puree

2 fresh ripe peaches (or try nectarines!)
8 fresh basil leaves, torn up
1/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup (half sugar, half water)

Puree ingredients in the blender. Drink it straight, drink it with club soda, drink it with whiskey. Drink it.

We aren't just locavores, we're loca-whores. We can't get enough.

Review: Michael Collins Irish Whiskey

The companies that send you free liquor as a marketing ploy are typically the underdogs. I don't expect anyone to show up asking me if I want to taste-test Jameson. Something about the popular kids draws excessive attention from fans and wanna-bes. Are the popular kids pretty? Do they have more money, better clothes, their own cars? Do they have sex with everyone?

Behind the popular crowd are the less recognized but often just as talented kids. Michael Collins Irish Whiskey is in this latter group. Some people - the aware ones - say, "Oh, sure, he's a pretty good guy." They know who he is even if they don't hang out with him much. The self-centered ones stare blankly. "Michael who? Is he that quiet dude in my gym class?"

What the other kids don't know is that Michael Collins is pretty smart. He's going to grow up to be a damn good Irish Whiskey, while the popular girl drops out of school pregnant, works at Dunkin' Donuts, and marries the football star who goes bald prematurely and gets really fat.

Yes, Michael Collins has something.

After we drank most of the bottle a sip at a time, Leah made good on her promise to actually create a cocktail, where Michael Collins gets to mingle with a very nice girl:

Michael and Rosemary

2 1/4 ounces Michael Collins Irish Whiskey
1 ounce rosemary-maple syrup (see recipe below)
1 orange wheel (1/4 inch thick)
3 dashes Angostura bitters
sprig of rosemary

Muddle all ingredients, using only 1/2 orange wheel. Add ice. Garnish with rosemary spring and other half of the orange wheel.

Rosemary Maple Syrup

1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup water
6 inch spring rosemary

Put maple syrup and water into a saucepan. Remove rosemary leaves from sprig and discard stem. Break leaves into pieces, and add to maple syrup mixture. Bring to a quick boil then reduce heat to low. Simmer for five minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Strain.

Give us a week or two, and we'll have some Michael Collins stocked at the Lounge for you to try in some cocktails.

Bunny Mojitos

The mint grew wildly this summer. Because it only rained once in the Northeast, a downpour that lasted about two months, the voracious four-lined plant bug used the mint leaves as umbrellas rather than dinner. We have consistently been able to harvest two pounds of mint a week for the Lounge mojitos.

But why did nothing else in the garden seem to be growing? Besides the obvious lack of sunshine, Eesah the Lounge Dog discovered the culprit while we were picking mint one day and I heard him pick up a squeaky toy. At least I thought it was a squeaky toy, until I realized that baby bunnies squeal just like squeaky toys upon finding themselves in a dog's mouth. And there it was, in the thick of the mint bed: A rabbit nest.

Because it only takes a couple of weeks for rabbits to mature into hypersexualized teenagers, a Teen Mama Bunny was small enough to get through the garden fence. She had found the perfect place to raise a family, inside a protected area full of bunny food, safe from the dog (except when we picked mint) and other hungry four-footed creatures.

Eesah uncovered two more rabbit nests this summer, one under a bush and one in the lemon balm, which has resulted in an extensive graveyard at the edge of the yard; we've buried six babies to date. I didn't have the heart to disturb the rest of the babies and even went so far as to erect a fence around one nest to keep the dog out.

Destructive, yes, but baby bunnies are so damn cute and fuzzy, even in the garden.

Strawberry Cocktails

Drink your strawberries while you can! Back by popular demand, Felicia is going to be serving up Strawberry-Basil Cocktails, starting today and ending really soon since strawberry season just doesn't feel long enough.

Of course, you can always buy strawberries off-season, but they are genetically altered giant mutants (that's a quarter next to the two in the above picture) who will eat your dog while you sleep.

Last week, we smashed strawberries into our mojitos, and we have also been known to sneak strawberries into everything else, too, like our State Street 75 and fresh spiked lemonade.

I can personally attest to how incredible the Strawberry-Basil Cocktail is since I drank five of them last night (Mom and Dad, I did not really drink excessively. Honest. I am exaggerating to amuse my reading audience). Seriously. Best. Drink. Ever.

Oh - one other tip - bourbon lovers should try replacing the vodka with Knob Creek, if you can get your hands on some ever-elusive Knob before the predicted outage.

Strawberry Lemonade

Strawberries have made their debut at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market. Berries are an easy cocktail addition; they can be muddled up into just about any drink, like a margarita, a mojito or a gin and tonic.

Because we had a fridge full of lemons, we decided to make some fresh-squeezed lemonade with strawberries. Lemonade is easy to make; use equal parts lemon juice, water and simple syrup. Our drink turned out a little darker than usual due to using organic sugar. If you have bottled lemon juice or even a can of Country Time Lemonade mix on hand, you can use one of those, though fresh-squeezed lemon juice will bring out the best flavor of the strawberries. Shame on you if you have Country Time Lemonade mix in your house! Shame!

A great thing about Strawberry Lemonade is that you don't have to spike it if you don’t want to. Why the hell wouldn't you want to spike it? Some people are strange, underage or pregnant. Without the alcohol, Strawberry Lemonade is appropriate for kids and non-imbibing adults, too.

For an extra-refreshing drink, throw your Strawberry Lemonade in the blender with ice. We tend to skip blender drinks ourselves – there’s more to clean up. We swear, the blender is broken. It just broke. Right before you asked for that blended drink. Honest.

Strawberry Lemonade

4 medium-sized fresh strawberries
2 ounces water
2 ounces lemon juice
2 ounces simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar)
1 ½ ounces vodka

Muddle strawberries in a pint glass. Add the rest of the ingredients and shake with ice. Serve over ice. Include a long-handled spoon for digging the strawberries out of the bottom of the glass.

Lovage Cocktail

The first time that I ever heard of lovage, I was dining at Dano’s Heuriger on Seneca Lake; Dano was growing lovage in his restaurant’s herb garden. I had no idea what the heck lovage was, besides tall and green. Later that spring, someone brought a bunch of lovage stalks to Felicia’s with the suggestion that we use them as Bloody Mary straws, since they are hollow and taste like celery. And we did. That same generous person delivered a large amount of lovage to the lounge again this year. This time, we decided to infuse this perennial herb.

Because vodka is flavorless, we chose it as the base for our infusion. I added a pound of chopped lovage minus the leaves to two bottles of vodka and let it sit for about five days. The result is a clean, mild, celery-flavored vodka. Now we have to figure out what to do with it. Suggestions?

Besides lovage’s obvious use as a base for a Bloody Mary, Leah created a less labor intensive drink, the Lovage Spritzer. Light and refreshing, the Lovage Spritzer is a fizzy drink that tastes like a springtime garden, though not like my garden, which only tastes like mint. And bunnies.

Lovage Spritzer

1 ½ ounce lovage-infused vodka
Sprite
Lime wedge*

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add lovage-infused vodka and top with Sprite. Garnish with lime wedge.*

*Note the absence of the lime wedge in the photo above. That's because we sacrificed 1, 287 limes this past weekend to the making of mojitos and caipirinhas. Curse you, labor intensive drinks!

Rhubarb Martini Update

As promised, I am updating our Felicia's Rhubarb Martini recipe.

When I was a kid, each Spring my mom would cook down rhubarb with a little bit of water and sugar. This became our dessert, eaten by the spoonful with puckered lips and squeaky teeth.

Mom's cooked-down rhubarb has become the base for this year's Rhubarb Martini at the Lounge. Here's my recipe:

Rhubarb Reduction Mush

8 cups chopped rhubarb
4 cups water
2.5 cups sugar

Cook the rhubarb and water til it turns to a tart mush. Stir in sugar. Let cool.

Now, eat it with a spoon, eat it over vanilla ice cream, use it as a pancake topping, or shake it up with vodka for the most luscious Rhubarb Martini ever. THIS IS NOT A TRICK. This is actually kind of the same recipe that I posted a year ago, except now we don't strain the rhubarb out. The more rhubarb, the tastier (and possibly, the drunker).

Rhubarb Martini

1.5 ounces vodka
3 ounces sweetened rhubarb reduction mush

Shake it, strain it, drink it. (With ice. Shake it with ice.)

Tart is the new black. You heard it here first.

No, you can't have my mom's rhubarb pie recipe, so stop asking.

Love,
Felicia

Locavore Cocktails

No, that is not a photo of Felicia's new baby in the picture above. It is a magical, poisonous mandrake root that hides under our kitchen refrigerator and occasionally drinks a bowl of milk, all the while conniving to bring fertility to Felicia staff. Curse you, mandrake root!

Just kidding, it's a parsnip. A huge parsnip. As a matter of fact, I don't ever want to eat another parsnip for as long as I live. I ate way too many from our farm cooperative last year, and frankly, they taste funny. Curse you, parsnip!

The good news is that the mint is in full bloom though the four-lined plant bug lurks and threatens. Our Mojitos are selling like, well, Mojitos. All of the staff have Popeye biceps from muddling and we can't seem to keep enough limes it the house, thanks to Caipirinhas as well.The lemon balm is also out of control, so please order a Lemon Coco Martini so I can cut this overgrown herb kingdoms back. Why, just six weeks ago our little mint family was barely poking its green heads above the ground.Just planted: baby basil for your pizzas and cucumber plants destined to become your cucumber gin and tonic.Next blog post: A revised recipe for the Rhubarb Martini!

Ramps in a Cocktail

Who puts ramps in a cocktail? Leah does. What else are you going to do with them? Well, yes, you can pickle some. She did that, too. Since she can't cook with them at home due to my stupidly useless onion allergy, ramp cocktails is a creative solution to five pounds of wild ramps sitting in the fridge.

What are ramps? A North American wild onion-like thing that one finds by foraging like a hippie on the forest floor in mid-Spring.

Try ramp-infused vodka in a bloody mary - minus horseradish which will over power it. I will post a recipe next week.

BEWARE: ramps will give you dragon breath. Unless your lover eats (drinks) them, too, be prepared to sleep alone tonight.

Coriander in a Cocktail

Making cocktails with locally grown ingredients is a challenge throughout the winter and early spring. Even if you have a root cellar or a freezer that was filled with the bounty of last summer’s harvest, by the end of April you have probably gone through all of it.

As we hunted for inspiration for this week’s cocktail, we found a ball jar filled with coriander in the back of the cupboard. Coriander is the seed of the cilantro plant. Every summer, I let our cilantro bolt to bloom its pretty little white flowers and subsequently go to seed. In September, I pull up the dead plants and save the dried seeds that did not fall to the ground.

We don't typically cook with coriander so those darn seeds get composted the following fall when I harvest new seeds that I am sure I will use this time.

And this time, we used them. Coriander adds a subtle, aromatic essence to a classic vodka martini. If you do not have any coriander, this cocktail designed by Leah Houghtaling is currently available at both Simply Red Bistro at Sheldrake Point and at Felicia’s Atomic Lounge.

Coriander Martini

3 ounces coriander-infused vodka (see below)
1/4 ounce dry white wine (like Simply White from Sheldrake Vineyards)
twist of orange peel

Shake infused vodka and white wine with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with orange twist.

To make coriander-infused vodka:

1/4 cup coriander seeds
1 liter bottle of vodka (we used Svedka)

Place coriander and vodka into a large glass jar and let sit 24 hours. Remove coriander seeds with a sieve and crush them with mortar and pestle (not food processor). Return crushed seeds to vodka for an additional 48 hours.
Strain.

The Making of a Mojito: Part I

Can I order a mojito? No. Can I order a mojito? No. Can I order a mojito? I want a mojito. No. When the weather warms up like it did last week, mojito cravings begin. Like birds collecting twigs for a nest or frisky squirrels trying their darndest to get laid, with the onset of Spring, the human mojito instinct kicks in. We do not have any control over it. The association of a mojito with warm weather is a normal, natural human urge. Why, then, is Felicia denying you the opportunity to feed your need?

The answer: we grow our own mint. This year, we are going to follow the life of a mint plant from baby sprout to a mature, well-developed tantalizing mojito. As you can see from the photos, the mint is currently just barely above the soil. And guess what April baby mint tastes like? No, it does not taste like mint. Why would I ask that question if the answer was so obvious? Duh. April mint tastes like...lettuce. Seriously. No flavor. It would make for a disappointing and extremely small mojito.

As I cut back the dead mint from last season, look what else I found! I guess humans are not the only ones who appreciate mint. The mint plants were a cozy blanket for whatever little creature cuddled up in here during the winter.
Unfortunately, the four-lined plant bug also likes mint. This year, we are going to kick his bug-ass so hard that we will knock him into Schuyler County.

So keep your pants on! You will get your mojito, but not quite yet. Besides, it's freakin' snowing this week. Something else to look forward to: this is a photo of the baby lemon balm, destined for your Lemon-Coco Martini: