Elemental Mixology

Friday, February 4, 2011

THE QUEST FOR HIGH-QUALITY FLAVORED BRANDY LIQUEURS

{with formulae for Apricot-flavored Brandy Liqueur, Blackberry-flavored Brandy Liqueur, Cherry-flavored Brandy Liqueur, and Peach-flavored Brandy Liqueur}

by Andrew “the Alchemist”

We have all seen recipes that call for cherry-flavored brandy liqueur and others that simply do not exist in good quality bottlings. There are notable exceptions. Orange-flavored brandy liqueur is available in quite a few good bottlings.

I refuse to purchase or use any flavored brandy liqueur that is not made from good ingredients. For this type of liqueur, I want the flavor to come from natural ingredients that are compounded with aged brandywine - instead of imitation flavorings added to un-aged grape spirits.

I would expect that, in order for the brandy flavor to be present and married with the added flavor, the finished flavored brandy liqueur should have a minimal alcohol content of 60° {30% alcohol-by-volume}. You may notice that the orange-flavored brandy liqueurs like Gran Gala and Grand Marnier are sold at 80°, and that you can actually taste the marriage of orange peel and aged brandy. If they were sold at below 60°, you would probably begin to lose the brandy flavor.

So, with those standards in mind, it is sadly the case that there are no good-quality bottlings of apricot-flavored brandy liqueur, blackberry-flavored brandy liqueur, cherry-flavored brandy liqueur, or peach-flavored brandy liqueur – even though many drink recipes call for them.

Partially-acceptable solutions are employed by bartenders to overcome this shortcoming of the liquor industry, but they are not without drawbacks.

For example, the Blood & Sand is often made with Heering cherry liqueur in place of the originally-specified cherry-flavored brandy liqueur. Heering is a cherry ratafia liqueur. Ratafia liqueurs are compounded by macerating the flavoring material, which usually includes something aromatic, in spirits. The spirit used in a ratafia liqueur is not of as much consequence as for some other types, because the aromatic element in the maceration can overcome the flavor of the spirit, and because ratafia liqueurs are often sold at proofs too low for the flavor of the spirit used in the maceration to be an equal partner in the flavor of the finished product. Heering cherry liqueur is a ratafia of cherries (and their aromatic pits) in neutral spirits with a proprietary blend of other aromatic substances. When using Heering in place of cherry-flavored brandy liqueur in the Blood & Sand, it adds significantly to the aromatic nature of a drink that was originally sufficiently aromatized mostly by the vermouth that is also in it – to the point that an unintended bitterness can become detectable. That is to say nothing of the fact that Heering fails to contribute any of the brandy flavor that was in the original drink.

So, what does the culinarily-driven mixologist do? The answer is simple. Compound your own high-quality flavored brandy liqueurs. The simple recipes below use an affordable Cognac brandy as the base, and liqueurs from France that are made with natural ingredients. The liqueurs selected are mostly crème liqueurs, which are compounded from neutral spirits that will not complicate the flavor of the brandy. Marie Brizard Apry contains Cognac brandy, but in the new version of the product, the proof is too low for the proper brandy flavor to be present. Also, using Apry in layered drinks from the 1800’s doesn't work properly, since Apry is obviously higher in sugar and lower in proof than the apricot-flavored brandy liqueurs of the good, old days – Apry is too heavy to layer in the original order.

These are formulae that I use when teaching my fabrication course. They will produce high-quality flavored brandy liqueurs at 60° {30% alcohol-by-volume}, or slightly higher. The brandy flavor will be evident. They all use liqueurs that are sweet enough that, when mixed with the brandy, the appropriate, medium-level of sweetness for a flavored brandy liqueur will be achieved.

Apricot-flavored Brandy Liqueur

1 part Salignac V.S. Cognac Brandy {80°/40% alcohol-by-volume}

1 part Marie Brizard Apry {41°/20.5% alcohol-by-volume – older bottles are 60°}

Stir well (without ice, obviously), but not vigorously enough to appreciably aerate

Pour into a clean, dry bottle and seal with a cap or cork

Yield: good-quality Apricot-flavored Brandy Liqueur

{60.5°/30.25% alcohol-by-volume}

Blackberry-flavored Brandy Liqueur

5 parts Salignac V.S. Cognac Brandy {80°/40% alcohol-by-volume}

4 parts Edmond Briottet Crème de Mûre Liqueur {36°/18% alcohol-by-volume}

Stir well (without ice, obviously), but not vigorously enough to appreciably aerate

Pour into a clean, dry bottle and seal with a cap or cork

Yield: good-quality Blackberry-flavored Brandy Liqueur

{60.4°/30.2% alcohol-by-volume}

Cherry-flavored Brandy Liqueur

1 part Salignac V.S. Cognac Brandy {80°/40% alcohol-by-volume}

1 part G.E. Massenez Crème de Griotte Liqueur {40°/20% alcohol-by-volume}

Stir well (without ice, obviously), but not vigorously enough to appreciably aerate

Pour into a clean, dry bottle and seal with a cap or cork

Yield: good-quality Cherry-flavored Brandy Liqueur

{60°/30% alcohol-by-volume}

Peach-flavored Brandy Liqueur

5 parts Salignac V.S. Cognac Brandy {80°/40% alcohol-by-volume}

4 parts Edmond Briottet Crème de Pêche de Vigne Liqueur {36°/18% alcohol-by-volume}

Stir well (without ice, obviously), but not vigorously enough to appreciably aerate

Pour into a clean, dry bottle and seal with a cap or cork

Yield: good-quality Peach-flavored Brandy Liqueur

{60.4°/30.2% alcohol-by-volume}

Enjoy!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

A Brief Study of the Negroni, or rather, the Camparinette Cocktail

by Andrew “the Alchemist”

In 1950, Horace Sutton published his book, "Footloose in Italy." In that book he suggests a couple of drinks he found to be native to Italy – the Negroni and the Cardinale. The Negroni, he wrote, is composed of “vermouth, campari [sic], seltzer and gin.” The Cardinale, he describes as being, “a Martini with campari [sic] which turns it red.” Sutton is not the only early source that presents the Negroni as being a cooler/highball. It appears to be a close relative to the Americano Highball of the 1920’s or 1930’s. Sutton’s book is evidence that what is called the Negroni today was known in Italy as the Cardinale during the same period.

But was the Cardinale truly native to Italy? In the American book published in 1934 by Boothby’s World Drinks Company and attributed to William Boothby (even though he had died in 1930), there is a drink called the Camparinette. The Camparinette Cocktail is composed of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari. It is diluted with method ice and strained into a glass cocktail goblet. The garniture is a twist of lemon. That should seem familiar to all drink enthusiasts, even if the name does not.

So, not only is the drink that is now commonly called the Negroni the same drink that the Italians and Sutton called the Cardinale in 1950 – it already existed in an American book with its own name in 1934. Since Campari is a grand bitters, the Camparinette is elementally that most American type of drink – a bittered sling, otherwise known as a cocktail.

What does this all mean for the bar-lore of an Italian count? If any one of the men proposed as the count Negroni in question was involved with creating any drink, it surely was not the more popular and better drink that people now errantly call after his name. That creature is of an elementally American species and breeding – and its home range is where its recipe was first documented – as the Camparinette Cocktail.
But, let's not be stingy! Italian restaurants have long been serving a salad from Mexico, the César Salad, as if it were Italian. Let them pretend the Camparinette is Italian, too - even if they have to call it by the name of one of their own abandoned drinks, the Negroni.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Sangaree vs. Sangris, Sangria, and American Sangarees

Sangaree vs. Sangris, Sangria and American Sangarees

by Andrew "the Alchemist"

The original Sangaree (or Sangre or Sangoree) was a punch documented in London as far back as 1736. Its normal composition was Madeira wine with lime juice, sugar, water and nutmeg. It’s possible that its originator, Mr. Gordon (who had a punch shop in the Strand in London), sold it as being healthy for the blood. Madeira wine is a fortified wine from the Portuguese island of Madeira. Mr. Gordon called his punch ‘Sangre’ from the Portuguese for ‘blood.’ ‘Sangaree’ is probably a flourish on a poorly-pronounced Anglicization of ‘sangre.’

Sangaree became very popular in the hot climes of the British Caribbean, and it most-likely spread from there to the French-speaking Caribbean as ‘Sangris.’ In the 1800’s, a writer in France postulated that the drink had a French origin since it seemed obvious to him that ‘Sangris’ came from ‘sang gris,’ which means ‘gray blood’ in French.

From either the French-speaking or English-speaking Caribbean, the drink spread to the Spanish-speaking world and became known there as ‘Sangria,’ where it is based on Spanish wine. By the 1900’s, Sangria was assumed to have a Spanish origin in much the same type of thinking that previously had it thought to be originally French.

In the U.S.A., Sangaree lost its sour element and dropped from punch to sling (the most uniquely American type of mixed drink). American Sangarees did retain the use of fortified wines, and by the 1800’s any sling containing fortified wine would be called a ‘Sangaree’ in the U.S.A.