One such recipe was the “New 1920 Cocktail” which looked like a worthwhile variation on the Manhattan (my all time favorite cocktail). Unlike your Classic Manhattan though, which generally calls for a 2:1 ratio of whiskey to sweet vermouth and a dash of aromatic bitters, this one calls for a 1:1 ratio of whiskey to vermouth (half sweet/half dry) and a dash of orange bitters. This half and half combination of sweet and dry vermouth in any drink is commonly referred to as a Perfect (insert drink name here, e.g. Martini, Manhattan, etc.) these days, but perhaps this book was written prior to that terminology catching on. The orange bitters are the other biggest difference, and they have the potential to match very well with the peppery rye whiskey I plan to use.

New 1920 Cocktail:

Tasting Notes:

I prepared this recipe using Wild Turkey Straight Rye Whiskey paired with Noilly Pratt sweet and dry vermouth, topped off with a generous dash drizzle of Regan’s Orange Bitters. The only liberty I took while following this recipe was to squeeze the lemon peel over a lighted match in order to further enhance, and bring out the aromatic oils of the lemon. The results were quite tasty! The drink was dryer than your typical Manhattan, but not overly so, and it had a lighter, spicier, more zesty personality than its somber, buttery, sometimes cloying brother. Don’t get me wrong, I love a balanced, well made Manhattan. This is just a nice change of pace when you’re in the mood for something a little more bright and bitter.

I have a beautiful, unexpected day off today, and am spending it in the kitchen, drying, preserving, mixing dough, thinking. Invariably it happens – someone close or far, a friend, a relative, a colleague, visits this blog and asks the same question. Why make bitters, or butter, or vermouth, or ketchup from scratch? Usually, the answer seems so clear to me, I needn’t even consider before answering. But last night I wondered aloud if it wasn’t just a little petty maybe, or a little silly, a grown up way, maybe, to play with my food.

No, Andy (my beloved, my better, more humane and just self) said, it’s a search for authenticity, for the authentic experience. Indeed. We are so far divorced from the way our food is made or grown, we often have trouble recognizing the real thing.

What, for instance, would real grenadine taste like? We have the “false” version on our bar (ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, water, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, sodium citrate, sodium benzoate, red 40, blue 1.), but I’ve been thinking of making some from scratch, out of real pomegranates. How about mayonnaise, granola?

I’m reading And Then, You Act, a collection of essays about making art, and more specifically, theater, in an unpredictable world. In her introduction, Anne Bogart suggest that as Americans in the 21st century we are the objects of “constant flattery and manufactured desire.” “I believe,” she says, “that the only possible resistance to a culture of banality is quality.” I believe that to be true of art, but I feel the same way about food. In many ways, quality and authenticity are synonymous. Eat, Michael Pollan suggests, food that your great, great grandmother would recognize as food. So today I peeled and sliced pears, cut apples into rounds.

Dried fruit is so easy, it hardly deserves a recipe. If you don’t have a food dehydrator, you can dry fruit successfully in the oven, but it will take a bit longer.

Dried Pears or Apples

• 4-5 lbs ripe apples or pears, peeled if desired
• 1-2 cups lemon juice (optional) or
• 1 cup honey (optional)

1. Cut fruit into uniform slices or rounds, about 1/8 – 1/4 inch.

2. If desired, treat with lemon juice (to help preservation), or honey (to sweeten). Place fruit on drying rack or cookie sheet with room enough between slices to allow for air circulation.

• To treat with lemon juice, mix 1 part lemon juice to 1 part water in a large bowl and place fruit into it. Allow to soak 10 minutes, drain well and place on drying rack or cookie sheet.
• To treat with honey, mix 1 cup honey with 1 1/2 cups warm water and stir to dissolve. Add fruit and soak 3-5 minutes. Drain well and place on drying rack or cookie sheet.

3. Set dehydrator to 135 degrees or oven to the lowest possible setting (or 140 degrees) and set racks inside. If using an oven, leave the door open slightly and, if possible, point a fan in to increase air circulation.

4. Dry for 6-12 hours depending on temperature and humidity, checking frequently when fruit is close to being ready. To test for doneness, cut several piece in half. There should be no visible moisture and fruit should not stick to itself when pressed together. The dried fruit should have about 20% moisture content.

5. Allow to cool and pack tightly into clean, dry, well sealed containers. Store in a cool dry place. Fruit will keep for up to one year.

~
Apple-Pear Sauce

Making apple or apple-pear sauce is just as easy as drying fruit. The sweetness of ripe pears works perfectly with tart, ripe apples. I used a variety of both – McIntosh, Granny Smith, and Cox’s Orange Pippin apples, and Bosc and Comice pears.

• About 20 medium apples, or a combination of apples and pears, cored, quartered, and peeled if desired
• 2-3 cups water
• 1 tbs honey
• 1 tsp almond extract

1. Place fruit in a large, heavy pot with about an inch of water and simmer, stirring regularly, until soft. Crush any remaining chunks against the side of the pot.

2. Stir in the honey and almond extract. The sauce will probably be sweet enough without the honey, but I like to add it for the flavor. Orange and vanilla extracts are also excellent, as is cinnamon.

3. Pour into sterile jars and process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner. Or transfer to a glass container and store 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator.

Yields about 5 pints.

Several months ago I had to drop off some equipment at a colleague’s house not far from where I live in Long Beach. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived, and after transferring the goods into my co-worker’s truck, he and his wife invited me to join them on their poolside patio for a glass of wine. I had a funeral I was supposed to be getting dressed for, but I couldn’t turn down an offer like that. Once inside Tom’s kitchen he asked me if I would like red wine or some vermouth on the rocks. He informed me that his family is of French descent and that they always drink vermouth on the rocks. He also let me know that the last time he was over there in the old country visiting his family he had made a habit out of drinking the stuff as well.

I politely declined the vermouth and opted for the red wine.

Since that day I’ve been asking myself why I didn’t go for the vermouth. Was it because I like to stick to the tried and true, or was it because I’d been brain washed by our “vermouth=the devil” cocktail culture. I’ve always heard vermouth referred to like a toxic substance or something to be used so sparingly in drinks that one could hardly taste it. Why would I want to drink a whole glass of something like that, and what is it anyway?

Turns out vermouth isn’t so scary after all, and is actually quite drinkable once you open your mind to it. The sweet (and original) version of vermouth is an aromatized wine which was developed by an Italian named Antonio Benedetto Carpano in the late 1700′s. It was named after the word “wermut”, which in modern German means both vermouth and wormwood. Sweet vermouth was originally produced by infusing any number of herbs and botanicals in a fortified white wine and adding sugar to sweeten it up and counteract the bitter flavor.

Not long after sweet vermouth came along, dry vermouth followed. It was invented by the French about 14 years later, utilized their dry white wines, and rarely had any sugar added. This is the primary vermouth used to make martinis these days.

The following recipe creates a fairly dry vermouth. If you wish to create a sweet vermouth simply caramelize some sugar until deep brown and add it to the vermouth once all is said and done. Add a little at a time until you reach your desired sweetness.

–Homemade Vermouth:

Ingredients:

• 5 pinches coriander
• 1 pinch spearmint
• 1 pinch sage
• 2 pinches burdock root
• 3 juniper berries
• 3 pinches dried orange peel (bitter preferred)
• 1 pinch scullcap
• 2 pinches Pau d’Arco bark
• 1 pinch oregano
• 2 pinch dandelion root
• 1/2 stick cinnamon
• 1 star anise
• 1 pinch cardamom seeds
• 2 pinch ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch sweet basil
• 1 pinch rosemary
• 2 pinches chamomile
• 1 pinch angelica root
• 1 piece gentian root
• 1 small pinch quinine
• 1 pinch Marjoram
• 2 pinches fennel seeds
• 2 pinches ground ginger
• 1 pinch bay leaf
• 4 cloves
• 1 pinch saffron
• 1 red chili berry
• 3 black pepper corns
• 5 drops wormwood extract
• 1/2 vanilla bean
• 2 tsp. white sugar
• 1 bottle dry white wine
• 150 ml. Cognac, or cheap brandy depending on your budget
• Extra 750 ml. bottle with screw cap
• Funnel
• cheese cloth or coffee filter or tee shirt

Method:

1. Measure out all the herbs and the sugar into a small sauce pan.
2. Open the bottle of white wine.
3. Cover the herbs in white wine, about 200 ml.
4. Simmer for about 10 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally, then let cool.
5. Add 140 ml. of Cognac to the empty bottle.
6. Add the remaining wine to the new bottle leaving a couple of inches at the top for the infusion.
7. Fit your filter material into your funnel and filter the cooled infusion. Make sure to squeeze out all of the juice.
8. Add the wormwood extract to the filtered infusion.
9. Add half of the infusion to the new bottle and shake it up to mix thoroughly.
10. Taste the concoction to see if it’s strong enough. If it’s not, add the rest of the infusion to the mixture.
11. If you think it needs more of a certain herb, simply add some more of that herb to the sauce pan, cover it with a dose of the vermouth mixture, boil, filter, add back to bottle.
12. Refrigerate the bottle after you’ve finished taste testing and adjusting the vermouth to your personal tastes.

Notes:

1. Any mixture of herbs and botanicals can be used. The ones I listed are just suggestions, most of which are easily available at Whole Foods or similar stores. You may need to mail order herbs like: gentian, angelica root, and quinine from a place like this.
2. This (or any alcoholic) beverage shouldn’t be consumed by lactating or pregnant mothers.
3. Thank you Darcy at The Art of Drink for giving me some guidance and inspiration on this project.

But thanks to the growing trend in favor of artisan spirits and quality cocktails, ryes are finding new popularity – and a new generation of appreciators. Many good bars and restaurants in San Francisco now feature a list of interesting small batch ryes. For a good introduction to these whiskeys and for tasting notes on many of the best examples, I highly recommend Eric Asimov’s article in the New York Times, published last November.

In general, ryes tend to be lighter and spicier than bourbons and work well in place of bourbon in most recipes (I particularly like a rye Old Fashioned). Two classic cocktails, however, were originally made with rye, and I prefer them that way. Even better, they both call for bitters!

– The Manhattan
*2 ounce rye whiskey
*1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
*1 dash Angostura bitters

1. Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill shaker with ice.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass.

3. Garnish with a fresh cherry that has been soaked in brandy or whiskey. You can also add a lemon twist.

– The Sazerac
*1 sugar cube
*3 – 4 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
*2 ounces rye whiskey
*1/4 teaspoon anise liqueur
(the drink was originally made with Absinthe, but Herbsaint, a New Orleans brand, is now traditional. You can also use Pernod, Absente, or another pastis)
*Strip of lemon peel

1. In a cocktail shaker, moisten the sugar cube with just enough water to saturate it, then crush. Add a hand full of ice, then add the whiskey and bitters. Stir or shake gently for about 30 seconds or until the drink is cold.

2. Add the Herbsaint to an old fashioned glass and swirl it around to coat the sides and bottom of the glass. Discard the excess.

3. Strain drink into the Herbsaint coated glass and twist the lemon peel over it. Rub the twist over the rim of the glass, then add as garnish.