But here are drinks from this weekend.

On Friday, I did something I almost never do, and mixed a drink from a magazine. It was a drink from this month’s Food & Wine, made with Hendricks, arugula, lime, and agave. I mixed it for two reasons: one, because it had arugula in it; and two, because it accompanied an article that reflected a lot of my own thoughts about bartending (and particularly my thoughts on the pretentiousness of the term “mixologist” and the unsettling trend of people putting things in drinks purely as a type of liquid oneupmanship as opposed to making something that tastes good. I wasn’t fond of the agave, and think it’s just not really the right sweetener for gin, but the arugula was really nice.

On Saturday, I made this:

Basil Negroni

This isn’t quite a negroni with basil in it; it’s a little bit off a traditional negroni recipe and has a sort of duskier flavor.

Ingredients for two drinks
6 oz gin
1 oz Campari
1 oz port wine
1/2 oz Grapefruit bitters
About 20 leaves basil, plus two pretty sprigs with blossoms

Instructions
Put everything in a shaker with ice, except basil flowers
Muddle until basil is bruised
Shake
Strain into two chilled cocktail glasses, add flowers for garnish

On Sunday, I started out my day by infusing a bottle of gin I wasn’t too thrilled with with lavender. We’ll see how it comes along next week.

Then I made this:

Elderfields Road

Elderfields Road is the name of the street my father grew up on. This drink is a variation on a Manhattan, and since he grew up right outside the city, I thought that was appropriate, considering the major ingredient here.

Ingredients for 2 cocktails
6 oz bourbon
Juice of 1 lime
2 oz elderberry syrup (homemade)
1 oz red vermouth
2 splashes blood orange bitters

Instructions:
Mix everything but the bitters together in a shaker with ice and shake
Pour into two chilled cocktail glasses, add bitters

The story of whiskey in New York is a funny one. You know what a Manhattan cocktail is, right? The Manhattan was called a Manhattan for a reason– because New York state was known for their abundant rye whiskey.

But then Prohibition came along, and the distilleries closed. When Prohibition ended, in many other parts of the country, the stills went back to work, but in New York, they stayed shuttered. Tuthilltown Distillery didn’t open until…I think 2005? I might be wrong on the year, but around then, and that was the first distillery in New York to produce whiskey since Prohibition ended. It is a tiny microdistillery inside an old mill granary on an 8-acre farm (which appropriately grows hops), but they make some of the best whiskey I’ve ever tasted. So when we found out they gave tours, I was really excited.

Click the link for massive awesome pictures of the distillery!

So my mother and I had an impromptu little gin tasting. Here are all our gins arranged geographically!

The gins in question are:
Greylock , from Berkshire Mountain Distillers, Great Barrington, MA
Gale Force, from Triple 8 Distillers, Nantucket, MA
Seneca Drums, from Finger Lakes Distillers, Burdett, NY
Bluecoat American Dry, from Philadelphia Distilling, Philadelphia, PA
Jin, from Dogfish Head Brewers, Rehoboth, DE
Death’s Door, from Death’s Door Spirirs, Washington Island, WI
Desert Juniper, from Bendistillery, Bend, OR
Rogue Spruce, from Rogue Ales, Newport, OR
DH Krahn, from DH Krahn Spirits, Mountain View, CA

My mother and I tasted 1/4 oz tastings of each gin in the order listed above. Here are our findings!

1) Greylock

I remember remarking on the distinctiveness of this gin the first time I opened the bottle. It has a sweet, light floral scent. The flavor is very crisp and clean, and has notes of orange blossom, anise, and black pepper. The flavor is also very mild and floral. This was my mother’s second favorite over all.

2) Gale Force

This gin immediately had a sharp, antiseptic scent. It had a very strong, sharp flavor with a lot of bay in it and tasted rather medicinal. I’ve mixed with this before and found ways to cut the sharpness and complement the bay flavor, but just on tasting, it wasn’t very pleasant.

I need to end this comment with two disclaimers: 1) this was the only one of the nine gins that we don’t think we will buy again. However, 2) Triple 8 also makes Hurricane Rum, which I love, so while this wasn’t my favorite, I still have high hopes for their other products.

3) Seneca Drums

I’m not joking: this gin smells like a margarita. The scent is more like a tequila than a gin, and has very strong lime notes. However, the flavor is completely different from the scent: it has a sweet flavor with a lot of coriander and celery. It’s extremely smooth and our take was that this would make a great negroni.

4) Blue Coat

Blue Coat is labeled as an American Dry, and it wears this label for a reason: of all the gins we tasted, it’s the closest to a classic London Dry. It is incredibly balanced, with light juniper notes and light pepper, but nothing particular overwhelming. Overall, it has a very clean, crisp flavor that hits the front of the mouth moreso than any other gin we tasted.

5) Jin

Jin has a very sweet scent that is almost reminiscent of rum. It has a nutty, buttery sweetness, too, that is not characteristic of rum. If you’re not a gin drinker and haven’t liked many gins you’ve tasted, this is one I would recommend you try. It has a light licorice note as well. This gin probably had the most unique flavor of all the gins we tried.

6) Death’s Door

This gin had the lightest bouquet of all the gins we tasted up till this point. Because it has almost no nose, when you taste it, the flavor is a bit of a pow! It has a strong anisey flavor, lots of liquorice and heavy juniper in it. My mother thought this would be great with orange.

7) Desert Juniper

this gin had a slightly medicinal scent, but there was almost none of that in the flavor. The flavor was, as the name suggests, predominantly junipery– but the flavor was also very smooth. My mother and I thought this would make an excellent dirty martini or bacon martini.

8) Rogue Spruce

This was my mother’s favorite of all the gins we tried. The smell is very piney, exactly as one would expect from a gin with “spruce” in its name. It has a nice cucumbery flavor up front, with notes of fennel, dill, and celery seed and a strong taste of peppermint. great classic botanicals but with a unique twist.

9) DH Krahn

Like Jin, I would highly recommend this one for people who aren’t normally fond of gin. It has a sweet scent with some cucumber and celery notes, and my mother detected some lime. The flavor is very flowery, light and sweet with notes of honey and violets. I thought this gin would make an excellent and more sophisticated replacement for vodka in many vodka drinks.

This one is a bit of a luxury, but it is a luxury that is achievable as long as you have a sunny window:

The Herb Garden

Herb Garden

The WHAT, you ask?

The HERB GARDEN, I say!

Fresh herbs can make a good drink wonderful, and if you’re going to invest in mixing a lot of drinks, growing your own is going to give you a better return than buying them every single time you want a cocktail. Plus, you won’t have to decide what you want in advance.

I grow about a dozen, several of which I’m not even going to list in this post, because they’re a bit more rare and not really staples (but I love them anyway). The ones here are the ones you should consider growing if you want to make fresh herbal concoctions! If you can’t grow herbs in a garden, you can still use this as a handy guide to what is yummy with what.

1) Mint

Mint

You probably know what mint is. Mint comes in many different varieties, and all of them look slightly different, but most of them will at least resemble the leaves in this photo. It can have fuzzy leaves, and different mints will have a different strength.

Mint is, obviously, needed for mint juleps, but also for mojitos, and right there, you can probably tell something about the great versatility of mint, that it is delicious with rum and with whiskey. It’s also excellent in gin and vodka drinks. If you are going to grow one herb, grow mint! It tends to be very hardy and will grow even in ridiculously difficult conditions, so it is an easy plant to cultivate.

If you are going to grow two herbs, the second one should be:

2) Basil

Basil

You probably know basil as the chief ingredient in pesto sauce, or as a starring member of an insalata caprese. But basil is also a fine addition to many cocktails. Basil plays well off citrus flavors like lemon, lime, and grapefruit. I use it in lemonade-styled drinks. As with mint, it comes in several varieties– you can even get basil in different colors! Basil goes best with gin and vodka drinks, but it is also okay with rum.

3) Cilantro

Cilantro

Again, better known as a cooking ingredient, cilantro, also known as coriander, is a chief ingredient in a lot of Latin American and Middle Eastern cooking.* There are a huge number of variations in cilantro/coriander leaves, and in the flavors, too. The one I show above is a Middle Eastern variety which looks sort of like fennel or dill. The Latin American variety looks more like flat-leaf parsley. In both cases, it can be distinguished by its pretty white flowers.

Cilantro is amazing in rum drinks, and I regularly use it as a replacement or addition to mint in a mojito. It’s also wonderful in daiquiris. It is also okay with gin or vodka.

*There is also an herb called Vietnamese Coriander which I also have planted and use regularly that has flat, reddish, shiny leaves and is unrelated to what is normally called Coriander or Cilantro. If you see it, it is yummy, but not the same thing! Try it in a gin drink!

4) Sage

Sage

Sage is not quite as versatile, but comes in a ton of varieties and many of them taste good in different types of drinks. Common sage, like the one I’m showing here, is notable for its “crumply” looking leaves and purple flowers, and most sage will at least partly resemble this, though it may have fuzzy leaves Sage has a rather pungent, herbal scent and is best in gin drinks or whiskey drinks. Other sage varieties will taste good in other liquors– I use pineapple sage in rum quite a lot.

5) Thyme

Thyme

Those creeping, tiny-leafed plants that almost look like a moss are Thyme! Thyme is a great addition to gin or vodka drinks, and, again, comes in many varieties that have slightly different flavors that you might like in other liquors. Unlike the other herbs here, you should strip the tiny leaves from the stems with your fingers, mash them a bit with a mortar and pestle to make the oils come out, and then soak them in liquor before straining them out.

There are many other herbs you can try! These are just a few of them that I think work best and are most common!

For most herbs, when you prepare them, you can do it in a number of ways. You will usually want to strip the leaves from the thicker stems, and then chop the herbs up to put them in a shaker, or mash them a bit with a mortar and pestle– this starts freeing the oils from the herbs that flavor things! Then you can add a whole, untouched sprig or leaf to garnish a drink. For some herbs that are more pleasant to eat whole, like mint or basil, you can add the crushed or chopped leaves to the drink when you serve them instead of straining them out– this is customary when making a mojito.

When you go to pick out your herbs, your best bet is to go to a local seller– big box stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot tend to be more susceptible to blighted plants. Try to find a local nursery who has many varieties of the herb you want to pick, and don’t be afraid to taste a leaf or two of the ones you are trying to decide between– between three or four mints, you might discover several very different flavors, and sometimes the prettiest plant is not the best-tasting.

So, I thought that in addition to taking a photo of the whole thing, I would take photos of what is inside it so that those of you who would like to learn to mix drinks or who already enjoy mixing drinks can get a feel for what I do.

This is the contents of my bar!

All the Liquor in My Bar

But I’m going to go through it and explain to you what-all this is.

1) Vodka

Vodka

Vodka is a very clear liquor that is made via a multiple distillation process, usually from grain or potatoes. It is very high proof and generally has no flavor other than tasting like alcohol.

I am not a fan of vodka, which is why you will see there are only three vodkas in my bar. Vodkas are normally used in cocktails that aren’t supposed to “taste like” alcohol, which, to me, defeats the purpose of drinking alcohol. There are also a lot of flavored vodkas available, but many of them taste like artificial flavoring, and that’s not my idea of a good drink. I keep vodka in my bar for friends, but that’s pretty much it– although true infused vodkas (vodkas that are used to soak herbs or fruit and then strained to get the flavor) are often yummy.

2) Gin

Gin

Gin is also a very light-colored liquor, but it has a bit more flavor than vodka…enough that different gins will have very distinctive tastes and you will want to use different types of gins in different kinds of drinks– the gin you use in a martini is not the same gin you want in a gin and tonic. Gin is, like vodka, usually made with grain, but it is made out a distilled grain liquor that you add juniper and sometimes other herbs to, and then re-distill again.

Gins are usually classified by their “dryness:” a dry gin will have very little juniper flavor. Less dry gins will taste like juniper, herbs, or citrus fruits. I keep a variety of these, ranging from a classic London Dry like Broker’s to sweet gins like Tanqueray Rangpur, which tastes like lime or Desert Juniper which tastes like juniper berries.

3) Bourbon and bourbon-style whiskey

Bourbon

Bourbon is probably my favorite liquor ever. It is a corn-based distilled liquor aged in charred oak. Technically, a bourbon whiskey MUST be made in the state of Kentucky, but there are a lot of good bourbon-style whiskeys that are not made in Kentucky, so I am including those here. I love bourbon because it is a bit sweeter than most whiskeys and has a fuller body. A lot of the drinks I post in my blog are bourbon based drinks made with fruit– it is great with peaches, cherries, and other berries. Bourbon is also the chief ingredient in a Mint Julep.

My (and the) standard bourbon to have in a bar is Maker’s Mark, which is famous for its red wax label. I always have at least one bottle of this, and then several other bourbons, some of which I use in mixed drinks, and others which I just drink on the rocks.

4) Scotch

Scotch

On the very far other side of the whiskey spectrum is scotch. Scotch is a whiskey made from malted barley and aged in oak. You don’t mix scotch. I mean, you could, but scotch is meant to be drunk neat (in a glass, room temperature, with no ice) and savored for the complexity of flavor. My mom is the real scotch drinker in the family– I like some scotches, but a lot of them are very peaty and taste like dirt to me. It is much drier than bourbon and is generally very light in texture but very strong.

5) Other Whiskeys

Whiskeys

There are many other whiskeys in the world! You will want some of them in your bar. My collection of whiskeys includes Irish whiskey, Canadian whiskey, American whiskey, and Southern Comfort, which is a whiskey-based liqueur. It i basically bourbon soaked with fruit and spices plus sweetener (traditionally honey). Different whiskeys are needed for different types of drinks, as they will have different flavors based on what type of grain they are originally made with!

6) Rum

Rum

Rum is possibly the most variable of all liquors, and thus you may, once you start expanding your bar, want many types of rum. Rum is a liquor made from molasses which means that is it generally the sweetest of all the liquors I have mentioned here. It also comes in many varieties, but there are three basic ones: white, or silver rum, which will be the “cleanest” one, gold rum, which will be a bit sweeter and have a bigger variety in tastes from one to the next, and black rums, which are the heaviest and sweetest. All three are appropriate for different types of cocktails and recipes. Many rums will have a citrusy flavor to them as well as the sugary flavor they are known for. In a well-stocked bar, you will probably want a silver rum, a gold rum, and a black rum.

7) Cachaça

Cachaça

Cachaça is basically like white/silver rum, except that it is made from cane juice instead of molasses and therefore has a distinctive flavor. It is not a bar necessity but it is the primary ingredient in a Capirinha, which is one of my favorite drinks.

8) Tequila

Tequila

This one is kind of embarrassing, but I put it in just for the sake of completeness. Tequila is a
Mexican liquor made from agave, a kind of succulent plant. Like rum, it comes in gold and silver varieties, with the silver having a cleaner flavor and the gold having more complexity.

HOWEVER, the only tequila in my cabinet was Jose Cuervo. While Cuervo is probably the best known tequila in the US, it is also fortified with a bunch of additives that can give people massive headaches (it’s sort of like the MSG of tequilas). So I highly recommend going with a different brand, especially if you are primarily drinking margaritas or other sweet mixed drinks, as sugary drinks are more likely to give people a hangover in general.

9) Pisco

Pisco

Pisco is a liquor distilled from GRAPES! It is a South American liquor which is most widely used in a Pisco Sour. This isn’t super essential for most bars but I like Pisco Sours a lot so I tend to keep a bottle of it.

10) Liqueurs

Liqueurs

Now we are getting into the silly stuff! Liqueurs are pretty much a very wide variety of liquors that are generally sweet and strongly flavored. I have liqueurs that are flavored with everything from elderflower to biscotti! So you can get a sense of the very wide range they cover. You will probably want a bottle of Triple Sec, a popular orange-flavored liqueur used in margaritas and other mixed drinks, in a started bar. People often like to have peach schnapps and sour apple schnapps, but I have neither as I prefer to use fresh fruit in most of my fruit-flavored drinks. If you want to know more about liqueurs, please just ask me and I will be happy to offer advice and suggestions.

11) Liquorices

Liquorice

Okay, okay, liquorices are a subgenre of liqueurs, really, but they are a big one so I am putting them all together. These are very strong herbal liqueurs that taste of– you guessed it, black liquorice. There are a lot of different types of liquorices. In my bar, I have Pernod, Sambuca, Ouzo, and Aqavit, but you have probably also all heard of Absinthe, which is another type of liquorice.

Liquorices are sometimes served straight in shots as aperitifs, but I tend to use them very sparingly, sometimes just to coat the glass of a drink before serving it.

12) Bitters

Bitters

There are a lot of kinds of bitters, but the main description of bitters is that they are an herbal concoction usually used in small quantities as a flavoring in a cocktail. Here are two very different kinds. Angostura bitters are alcohol-free and are stored in the refrigerator; Campari is a bitter liqueur. There are several other kinds of bitters, notably orange bitters (which I have and forgot to take out of the fridge) and Peychaud’s bitters, which are almost impossible to get outside of New Orleans and are an ingredient in the Sazerac cocktail. Bitters are pretty awful on their own, but are delicious when mixed in sweeter cocktails. Campari is one of the main ingredients in a Negroni, which is one of my favorite drinks.

13) Vermouth

Vermouth

Vermouth is technically a kind of wine. It is a wine that is soaked with herbs and comes in two categories: dry white and sweet red. There is also “extra dry” vermouth. Dry white vermouth is an important ingredient in a Martini, while sweet red is an important ingredient in a Manhattan.

14) Brandy

Brandy

Brandy, like scotch, is a sipping drink. It is a distilled liquor made by distilling wine. There are a few drinks you might mix it with, but for the most part, you are going to drink it neat. My advice for brandies is to have a good brand for sipping and a cheap brand (like the Korbel here) for mixing. Brandy is great poured over desserts and in eggnog or as a little splash in a sangria, but you don’t want to use the fancy stuff for that!

15) Apple Brandy

AppleJack

You can get a lot of fruit-flavored brandies, and I prefer these to Schnapps for mixing. Mostly, I keep apple brandy on hand, but you can also get pear, peach, and various berry-flavored brandies. They are generally made with the fruit, rather than simply flavored like Schnapps is, and are really great if you soak fruit in them before using them to mix. I use apple brandy in my green apple flavored drinks– I usually soak apples in with apple brandy and sugar as a base.

16) Dessert Wine

Dessert Wine

Port, Madeira, and Sherry are the three big dessert wines. They are very thick, syrupy, and sweet, and many people sip them straight, but they are also amazing poured over desserts and as mixers. I like mixing dessert wines with rum or whiskey, and I use them in a lot of my hot winter cocktails.

And here is what it looks like when it is all in the cabinet where it belongs. The only liquors that don’t go in the cabinet are the scotches, which are out in the living room, and the brandies, which are on top of the cabinet. Those ones are really my mom’s liquor, though, and she drinks them more as after-dinner sipping drinks.

The Bar

I will say that this is 1) an expensive hobby and 2) something I have been working on for a long time. Liquor lasts for a long time so specialty liquors don’t need to be purchased too often. The only ones you will be replacing frequently are the ones you like and mix the most often. Types of liquor range in price from $15-16 for a bottle of many liqueurs to $70 and sometimes even higher for a bottle of good scotch. My recommendation is to buy small bottles of staples to start, see which ones you like best, and then purchase those in the biggest bottles you can get, because it will be cheaper in the long run. Pretty much the entirety of my liquor collection comes in the form of gifts– this is what I get as Christmas and birthday presents! Don’t feel like you need to have as much liquor as I do to learn how to do this right– to start off, just having a bottle of gin, bourbon, rum, vodka, vermouth, bitters, and a couple of liqueurs or other things that look exciting to you is a good place to start. You should be able to get together a good bar to start experimenting for about $200. If you buy little bottles to start and see what you like the taste of, you can do it much more cheaply– many liquors come in taster bottles that cost under $10.

If anyone has questions about starting your own bar or about mixing drinks, I would be happy to answer them! I intend to follow this up with posts about some of the other items you should have if you want to get into bartending as a hobby– there are accessories, non-alcoholic mixers and ingredients, and glasses you will want to have as you progress!