Oh So Beautiful Paper

It’s summer in the city and, in DC, the Rickey reigns supreme from Memorial Day to Labor Day. But while the Gin Rickey (or the Whiskey Rickey, which is totally cool too) is refreshment distilled into a single perfect glass, it doesn’t have to be the beginning and end of the Rickey. We decided to play around a little bit with the basic formula and came up with something we think you’ll enjoy. Something just as cooling and refreshing as the original, with a bit more complexity to it: The French Rickey. – Andrew

The French Rickey

2 oz Gin*
1 oz St-Germain
1/2 Lime
1 Strawberry, Hulled & Quartered
Tonic Water

Add the gin and St-Germain to a cocktail glass. Add half a lime and muddle well. Squeeze the strawberry gently – don’t muddle – to release some juice and add to the glass. Fill with ice and top with tonic water. Enjoy!

*Gin works fabulously here, as does whiskey. If you really want this to be a French French Rickey, I bet you could even get away with Cognac. In this case, we used Rhubarb – a concoction of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction – which works surprisingly well here, with a vegetal complexity that matches the St-Germain nicely.

 

Just like its inspiration, the French Rickey is bracingly fresh and refreshing, with lots of crisp citrus and bitter tonic. But it’s also a bit sweet, floral, and fruity from the St-Germain and strawberry. So mix up your basic Rickeys and give the French Rickey a try this summer.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

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Summer is upon us! I mean, not technically, what with the equinoxes and solstices and all that stuff I’m supposed to remember from sixth grade science class. But practically speaking, it’s here. In that spirit, here’s a perfect drink for summer, our very first Tiki drink to be featured on Cocktail Fridays: a Coconut Milk Piña Colada! Creamy, fruity, sweet and a little funky, the Piña Colada is perfectly tropical for summer. – Andrew

The Piña Colada

1 1/2 oz Light Rum
1 oz Dark Rum
2 oz Coconut Milk
1 oz Heavy Cream
4 oz Pineapple Juice
1 Dash Bitters

Combine everything in a shaker and shake well with lots of ice. Strain into a tall glass filled with fresh ice, garnish with some fresh pineapple and/or cherries, and enjoy!

Lots of people blend their Piña Coladas. I’m not one of them. There’s nothing wrong, in general, with blended drinks, but if you don’t drink them down quickly, you risk a glass filled with melted ice and watered-down booze. Blending leaves ice crystals too small and melting pretty quickly, too quickly for my tastes. So try shaking and then straining over crushed ice instead – you’ll get some of the same slushy effect as blending, but your ice will stay frozen a bit longer.

The Piña Colada hails from Puerto Rico, where, in the 1950s, Ramón Marrero first blended one up at the Caribe Hilton. Victor Bergeron, the Trader Vic of Tiki drink fame, later helped popularize it. It’s not hard to see why. Not just delicious, this drink is just a lot of fun.

 

The earliest version of this drink used coconut cream, pineapple juice (hence the name), and light rum. I’ve borrowed and tweaked this recipe a bit from Dale Degroff, who uses both dark and light rum, as well as some Angosutra bitters, to add a lot of complexity and a bit of rum funkiness to an otherwise fairly straightforward drink. I also like to use coconut milk over coconut cream because, why not? The heavy cream ensures the Piña Colada remains extraordinarily rich and delicious (and full of calories).

 

Just make sure you use plenty of pineapple juice. I tried this recipe with half as much, and the result was a bit bitter and plenty dull. The pineapple gives this drink a sweet zip that’s the Piña Colada’s heart and soul. Well, that and the rum.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Nole and I recently celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary (woohoo!) at one of our favorite New York restaurants, Perilla. Nole – a picky drinker – loved a version of the classic Greyhound highball the bartender made for her, so I decided to play around with the recipe once we got home, so as to continue to ply her with drinks she enjoys. We ended up with a great cocktail on our hands, which we decided to call the Persian Greyhound: a light and breezy sour that’s perfect for the heat wave rolling over DC this week.  – Andrew

Illustration by Caitlin Keegan for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Persian Greyhound

2 oz Dry Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
1 oz Pomegranate Liqueur
1 Dash Ginger Liqueur
1 Dash Simple Syrup

Combine everything with ice, shake well, strain into a chilled cocktail glass and enjoy!

 

The Greyhound is properly a highball – a two-ingredient drink usually served in a tall glass that shares a name with this family of drinks – made from gin and grapefruit juice. (And never vodka, no matter what you hear, because who wants to drink that?) But I’m rarely content with simple highballs and usually end up adding all sorts of things to them; I’m sure there’s a time and place for a gin and tonic, for example, but why not have the superior Gin Rickey instead? So we balanced the bitter tartness of the grapefruit juice with the sweetly tart pomegranate liqueur, threw in some a bit of spicy ginger liqueur to pair with the gin’s botanicals, and added a bit of simple syrup to round out all that tartness. The results? Nole loved it – which is good enough for me.

With all that pomegranate liqueur, we thought it only proper to name this drink the Persian Greyhound. Only it turns out there really is a breed of dog called the Persian Greyhound, also known as the Saluqi (in Arabic) or Tazi (in Persian). Pretty neat.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Nole and I are big fans of one of our Capitol Hill neighborhood restaurants: Ted’s Bulletin. Ted’s has some great food and drinks (and is very welcoming to Sophie, which just makes us like them more). One of their best drinks is the Delbarton Burns, which carefully balances a really peaty Scotch – an unusual base – with sweet and spicy notes for a subtly delicious cocktail. – Andrew

Illustration by Caitlin Keegan for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Delbarton Burns

2 oz Scotch
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Benedictine
2 Dashes Orange Bitters

Combine the Scotch, vermouth, Benedictine, and bitters with ice. (Ted’s starts with Laphroaig, a really briney, peaty Scotch, so make sure you use one with lots smoke to it.) Stir well, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry or a lemon twist. Enjoy!

 

The resulting drink is pretty neat. A peaty Scotch can, by itself, taste something like a campfire, not something everyone is looking for in a cocktail. The smokiness does shine through in the Delbarton Burns, but it’s not overwhelming at all. Instead, it’s carefully balanced with the light, sweet notes of the vermouth and the sweet herbal notes of the Benedictine, making this drink far more subtle than its ingredients would suggest. (This seems to be a reoccurring theme with Scotch cocktails.)

The Delbarton Burns is, in a lot of ways, a play on the Manhattan we featured last week. Swap in Scotch for another whiskey, replace a bit of the vermouth with Benedictine, and you have a very different but still familiar drink. Like the Manhattan, the Delbarton Burns is the sort of drink that benefit from a bit of aging. Try mixing up a batch and leaving them to sit in a glass container overnight; you’ll enjoy a much mellower, superbly well-integrated drink.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Nole reminded me recently that we have been remiss in writing about one of the most basic, and one of the best, cocktails of all time: the Manhattan. Sweet and oaky, spicy and rich, the Manhattan should be a cornerstone of every cocktail repertoire. – Andrew

Illustration by Caitlin Keegan for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Manhattan

2 oz Rye Whiskey
1 oz Sweet Vermouth
2 Dashes Bitters

Combine everything with lots of ice, stir well, and strain into a chilled tumbler. Enjoy!

The recipe above is my personal favorite and will serve up a fantastic drink, but treat it as a template rather than a rule. Consider bourbon instead of rye for a smoother, sweeter version. Or Punt-e-Mes instead of sweet vermouth for a bitter, sharper drink. Or try flipping the recipe, with two parts vermouth to one part whiskey, for a lighter and more aromatic drink. Or try adding a dash or two of absinthe or maraschino liqueur, two ingredients that pop up in many of the original versions of this recipe. Over ice or straight up, with a cherry or a lemon twist or no garnish at all, this is a pretty good drink.

 

Just make sure that, whatever permutation you try, you don’t forget the bitters. Bitters make this drink. I’m a fan of a dash of Angostura and a dash of Fee Brothers Black Walnut bitters, but just make sure there are bitters. (I think that, for a long time, bartenders forgot that Manhattans need bitters and served many terrible Manhattans. Fortunately, most have remembered again.)

 

The Manhattan is – for very good reason – one of David Embury’s six basic cocktails that everyone should know. It’s easy to see why: incredibly simple to make, incredibly delicious. If I was limited to just one cocktail for the rest of my life, it would be a close call between the Manhattan and Sazerac.

The Manhattan was almost certainly invented in New York (for reasons that are hopefully obvious). Beyond that, not a lot is known about its origins. The drink probably dates back to the late 1800s, but most stories of its invention don’t pass the smell test. I suspect, without any evidence but taste and a bit of logic, that the Manhattan descends (like the Martini) from the Martinez cocktail, making it the cousin of the Martini.

I like the idea of drinks having family trees.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper