Summer Sours

With the summer heat upon us, we needed to break in the new deck furniture at the Firewater Lounge. The only way to do this properly is to cool off with a few drinks, so let's give you a few. A week ago or so, Cindy and I found some good grapefruits on sale in Madison. Besides Durango's Strater Hotel whiskey sipper, the Bustamonte 1957, and anything in the Firewater Lounge that contains Don's Secret Mix (see FWL blog post from September 2011), there isn't a whole lot of grapefruit juice straight up in this venerable blog.

To correct that, Cindy was looking to add a paloma to the Lounge. Now, the paloma is a classic drink for sure, but pretty boring. It's simply Squirt soda and tequila at a 2 to 1 ratio with a splash of lime juice. Yeah. Like a rum and coke. That doesn't do it for us here at this bar. So we made a modern-day accepted riff on the paloma that has more flavor and more real juice.

Mezcal Paloma

2 ounces mezcal (we used Bozal)
2 ounces fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
top with club soda or 7-Up

Shake the first three ingredients with ice. Strain over ice in a Collins glass. Top with soda and stir gently a few revolutions. Garnish with a grapefruit swath. If you like it sweeter, rim your Collins glass with sugar prior to icing it.

Now, the Paloma isn't the only sour worthy of your summer enjoyment. I poured myself a Jasper's Planter's Punch for my deck excursion. What's that? A funky Jamaican rum in Jasper's Secret Mix (see FWL blog post from June 2010). The key to this flavor bomb of a drink is the esters created from the traditional pot still distillation of Jamaican rums. Esters are formed through a chemical reaction between alcohols and acids during fermentation and distillation, creating fruity and floral aromas and flavors that are banana and/or mango-like. It's referred to as 'hogo' or 'funk', and it's great in Jasper's mix. Whip yourself up a batch of Jasper's and try it in Smith & Cross, Wray & Nephew, or Hamilton rums (or all three)! Here's the recipe:

Jasper's Planter's Punch

1 part Jamaican rum (I used Hamilton)
1 part Jasper's Secret Mix

Build in an old-fashioned or rocks glass over ice. If you need it sweeter, top with 7-Up.

Sweeney Todd Cocktail

 For the first time in over 40 years, Steven Sondheim's original Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is coming back to Broadway. Now, I'm not much of a musical kind-of-cat, but I am quite fond of the tale of the demented barber, what with all the slit throats, copious corpses and cannibalism to spice up the affair. Let's just say it's not the Sound of Music.

Sondheim's musical was also the vehicle for the late, great Angela Lansbury to win her fourth Tony. Lansbury passed last October. So in her memory, a Firewater Lounge concoction inspired by the musical made full of fire and bitters (but no people). It's a husky blend of Kirk and Sweeney Dominican Rum and Minnesota small craft bourbon from Douglas & Todd. Get it?

Sweeney Todd Cocktail 

Holly's Original

1 1/2 ounces dark rum (use Kirk and Sweeney if you have it)
1 1/2 ounces bourbon (use Douglas & Todd if you have it)
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash Bitter Truth wood bitters

Combine and serve neat or sparingly with ice. Garnish with a lemon garnish- swath, twist or dry wheel.  

Portland, Maine

Time to take the Lounge Lizards to the farthest-most northeastern locale of the long-standing Around America series- Portland, Maine. Along the sun-splashed early summer wharf, there are plenty of seaside offerings to be had, from Boston clam chowder at Becky’s Dinner to chocolate-covered Maine blueberries at Old Port. All the tasty treats require a bit of liquid refreshment, so why not partake in some of the in-house libations at Liquid Riot Bottling.

Liquid Riot does it all. They brew beer. They distill spirits. They serve lobster bao buns. We came for bottles of their booze. Their catalog includes five types of whiskey, vodka, a couple of beer spirits, rum and fernet; we purchase bottles of the latter two. Their standard rum, Dow’s Demise, is named after Neal Dow, the mayor of Portland in the mid-1850s. Dow, known as the Napoleon of Temperance, instituted the Maine Law, which prohibited alcohol in the city. When the city got wind that Dow had purchased $1300 of liquor at City Hall for ‘medicinal purposes,’ the people rioted and the militia Dow called out killed a man. The Portland Rum Riot of 1855 ended Neal Dow’s political career, but gave both Liquid Riot and their rum, Dow’s Demise, their names.

The Dow’s Demise itself is a blend of small batch rums aged in oak whiskey barrels. It’s funky and sweet; any cocktail you would use a deep Jamaican rum like Smith & Cross in, would be excellent with Dow’s Demise. The house fernet, named Fernet Michaud after Liquid Riot’s proprietors Eric and Ian Michaud, is a blend of 21 botanicals which is aged half a year in Maine blueberry wine barrels. The resulting amaro is mint-forward with grassy bitterness and a sea salt back. 

For a cocktail, we’ll go with a house special in the Resto-bar, the Rum Punch. The recipe is modified from its roots in that Liquid Riot eschews the typical orange juice and adds Benedictine. In addition, the sweetness and color of grenadine is replaced by cherry liqueur.

Drink: Liquid Riot Rum Punch
Establishment: Liquid Riot Resto-bar
Location: Portland, Maine
First Connoisseur: Holly

2 ounces Dow’s Demise Rum
1 ounce Benedictine
1 ounce cherry liqueur (Liquid Riot uses Rothman and Winter)
3 ounces pineapple juice
½ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
Dash of Angostura bitters

If you don’t have Rothman and Winter cherry liqueur, Herring will work. Place all ingredients in a shaker full of ice. Shake until chilled and foamy. Serve over fresh ice in a Collins glass.

Jumbie Toddy

December is here and the first week of the month already looks cold. That’s fine, though, Lounge Lizards, because we are here for you--with warm alcoholic libations. A few years back, we were gifted a bottle of rum liqueur from the now-defunct Dancing Pines Distillery of Estes Park, Colorado from Cindy’s parents. This rum liqueur, also known as Jumbie, is a mixture of rum, citrus, and spices whose secret blends were entrusted to the legendary spirits of the Caribbean who also share the ‘Jumbie’ appellation. Dancing Pines’ version is lightly spiced with a big bitter orange peel nose and acid-front flavors of both oranges and lemons. Frankly, the citrus overwhelms the rum so much it is difficult to tell its quality.

Given the high lemony acid load of the liqueur, and the cold temperatures outside, we elected to treat the jumbie toddy-style.

Jumbie Toddy
Holly's Original

2 ounces Dancing Pines Rum liqueur
1/4 ounce Xtabentun
4 ounces cinnamon-honey syrup

Combine ½ cup water and ¼  cup honey, and 2 2-inch Indonesian cinnamon sticks in a small pot over medium heat. Heat to just boiling, reduce to simmer. Simmer ten minutes.

In the meantime, boil one cup of water in the microwave. Split the boiling water into two 6-ounce Irish coffee mugs to warm the mugs during the remaining time the syrup is simmering.

Once the syrup is ready, pour the water out of the mugs and discard. Place 2 ounces of rum liqueur in each mug, followed by ¼ ounce of Xtabentun (Mayan liqueur), and top with 4 ounces of the cinnamon-honey syrup. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Stone Fence

It’s been a busy year here at the Firewater Lounge, with Cindy and I taking second jobs and having our first high schooler running wildly to and fro, finding time to seriously sit down for cocktail hour with the Lounge Lizards has been pretty tough. But it’s Christmas, and we always find a way to give all the Lounge Lizards something liquid for Christmas. And hopefully, from our glass to yours, you will find a little cheer and love as well.

This year we were showered with gifts from the Jensen family who has been very good to us over the last year. From sharing their tremendously talented and intelligent daughters for more mock trial successes to helping Cindy get her photography into the Wisconsin Artist Showcase to helping with an emergency at one of my crime scenes, the Jensens were there.

The Jensens also sent a holiday basket of goodies to Cindy for some photography that she had shot, so we thought it apropos to share with everyone at the Firewater Lounge because, well, it’s Christmas.

Since the basket contained Martinelli sparkling cider, we choose one of the oldest cider cocktail recipes in American history, the Stone Fence. Tracing its rabble-rousing reputation to the draught which pre-fueled Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys’ victory at Fort Ticonderoga during the Revolutionary War in 1775, the Stone Fence has always been liquid courage in a glass. Potent, yet drinkable, the Stone Fence has always been 1 part whatever liquor you have, 2 parts cider (or hard cider if you are Ethan Allen) and bitters. We most often have them with bourbon; Allen would have used the more available rum.

We’d like to give you two Stone Fence recipes. The first is the classic rum variety; the second is a modern rendition from Black Twig Cider House in Durham, North Carolina. Enjoy. Thank the Jensens for the inspiration if you see them before we do, and, as always, have a Merry Christmas!

Stone Fence (Classic Pours Series)

1 part dark rum (we used Smith and Cross)

2 parts apple cider (we used Martinelli)

1 dash Angostura bitters

Pour rum and cider into a rocks glass filled with ice. Float the bitters on top of the drink to allow the drinker to decide whether they want to stir or drink through the bitters. When Stone Fences are garnished, it is usually with mint or freshly-grated nutmeg; since it’s Christmas time, we chose the nutmeg.

Black Twig Stone Fence

1 part gin (we used Vikre spruce)

2 parts apple cider (we used Martinelli)

2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Same routine as a traditional Stone Fence. This time, though, the garnish is a clementine swath.

Kill Devil 17 Rum

Roughly two and a half years ago, we were happy as a clam in the FWL that the Cuban Embargo was lifted on limited amounts of alcohol. Immediately, we grabbed bottles of classic Havana Club and one of my favorite rums ever, Santiago de Cuba. This Christmas, I snared a bottle of Kill Devil 17 Year for Cindy, our third and maybe last bottle of Cuban rum for sometime. This week, President Trump plans to limit American freedoms in regards to Cuba for no known reason other than because Obama relaxed the embargo. No matter what you think of President Trump, and we don’t get too much into politics here in the FWL, the only thing that Trump has accomplished thus far is to attempt to erase Obama’s legacy through executive order, even if it means that you do the most unAmerican thing you can- attack the American freedom to drink. I am hoping like hell that Trump leaves the cigar and rum provisions alone, otherwise, true blue Lizards of the Lounge will remember the slight. Any changes we hear about, we will throw it in the comments of this article below.

In the meantime, here’s a rum that you may stand to lose in the re-embargo- the Kill Devil 17 Year (actually you probably won’t be able to find our 1998 expression, period, because the bottles of its single cask are sold out, but the 1999 expression is still around). Distilled in Sancti Spiritus Distillery in Cuba, the Kill Devil 17 pours out straw in color and delivers a nose-worth of vanilla and black pepper. It’s a hefty 92 proof, so it’s a bit hot to drink straight, but its long, slightly tobacco finish can withstand a splash of water. We mixed ours with Montenegro to a welcome effect, though a myriad of amari would let this dry Cuban sing.

Summer Morning

If there is a neglected liquor on the shelves of the Firewater Lounge, it’s vodka. Since most Wisconsin vodkas have consisted of artificial fruit flavor, synthetic dyes, and isopropyl alcohol (take your dad’s dusty bottle of Mohawk lime vodka, for instance). Since we solely use vodka to drink straight (like Zubrowka) or heighten the alcohol percentage in a drink here, we tend to only sparingly use high-quality vodkas that taste as clean as possible.

This summer season, however, started with a flavored vodka kick. We had been drinking grapefruit crema in the spring, but since we don’t have a ready supply of Tattersall liquors in southern Wisconsin yet, we switched to Deep Eddy grapefruit vodka. Combining 7up with Deep Eddy grapefuit makes for fine, quick 1-to-1 summer fare. If you are up for experimenting with Deep Eddy for bunch or tiki, let us suggest the following recipe:

Summer Morning Cocktail
Holly’s Original

2 ounces dark rum (we used Plantation)
1 ½ ounces triple sec
1 ounce Deep Eddy grapefruit vodka
3 ounces orange-mango juice
1 ounce pineapple juice
Splash freshly-squeezed lime juice
3 heavy dashes Angostura bitters

Shake all ingredients well in an iced shaker. Strain into summer stemware. Garnish with lime twist or spanked mint leaves or both.

Winter Beer Cocktail

El Nino is playing havoc with our holiday season. That little southern scoundrel is guaranteeing a snowless Christmas and street-corner Santas in Bermuda shorts. It’s also messing with the Firewater Lounge and its Lizards. Why? Well, if the Lounge is known for one thing, it’s for our Christmas tipples: Hot Buttered Rum, Tom and Jerrys, Hot Spiced Drambuies, and Gringo Hot Chocolates...you know, all the drinks that keep the holiday spirit cozy, bright, and warm. But the weather this year in December is damn close to March.

Memories and Happy Fourth of July!

Our 15th Anniversary party was a success. We thank all of you who came out to spend the evening with us, especially Marilyn, who removed Jason’s kitchen shackles for at least one night. In many ways we wouldn’t be the people we are without all of you.

Most of the night we reminisced as much as we drank, and a few times we reminisced about drinking! Since some of you couldn’t make it for the drinking how about repeating some of these college classics for your Fourth of July weekend.

Corrie, M.J., Aaron and I were pondering the oldest bottle in the Firewater Lounge, a bottle of Aftershock. We rarely pour the cooling cinnamon schnapps, especially since Firewater was the mainstay of Winterfest. However, we did have this college shooter we used to evaluate the worthiness of friends-of-friends that would come to our parties. The shooter is half Firewater, half Aftershock, poured over a speared cherry. We would tell newbies that this was a sophisticated little drink that you should be able to tell the cherry nuances after pounding the shot. In reality, the drink is 90 proof, so no one but suck-ups would claim they taste cherries. Those people were soon to be very, very drunk (or out snipe hunting).

Iron Maiden
Holly's Originals

3/4 ounce Aftershock cinnamon schnapps
3/4 ounce Firewater cinnamon schnapps

Use cocktail swords to skewer a maraschino cherry like shown in the photo. Place speared cherry on a shot glass. Pour liqueurs over the cherry into the shot glass. Remove cherry and shoot! Taste like cherries?

A second shooter we tested the green drinkers with is the classic cement mixer. Purposely, this shot coagulates in your mouth and has caught many a college drinker off-guard and those in the know, loving it.




Cement Mixer
Classic Pour

1 part Bailey's Irish Cream
1 part lime juice

Pour both ingredients in a shot glass. Take the shot, but retain it all in your mouth. Shake your head like you are a dog with a fun chew toy. Chew and swallow.








If you haven’t caught on, we have given you a red drink and a white drink, so how about a blue one to complete our Fourth of July/15th Anniversary/college memory blog post. Often times we need a name for a newly concocted drink. Back in the day, we leaned on M.R. Hoffman to do the honors. This is what he came up with for this one...

Floating Blue Balls
Holly's Originals

1/2 ounce Herbsaint (or Absinthe)
1 1/2 ounce pineapple rum
1 1/2 ounce blue curacao
1 ounce Champagne (we use Aria Cava here)

Wash the inside of a cold Champagne flute with the Herbsaint, then discard remainder. Stir rum and curacao on ice (I added five drops of Boker’s bitters to make this a true, tastier cocktail) in a separate vessel. Strain contents into your Herbsaint-prepared flute. Add chilled Champagne. Garnish with blackberries.

A Visit to Spec's

Heaven is Spec’s. The Texas liquor superstore is everything the alcohol connoisseur needs and wants- aisles and aisles of liquid awesome. Boasting 150 stores all over Texas, if Spec’s doesn’t have it, it’s likely able to get it for you. I stopped at my first Spec’s outside San Antonio and spent $200 without blinking. I was kicking myself because I didn’t have cash since Spec’s has a policy of 5% back if you pay with cash. So, to get this discount, I got cash, and stopped at the Spec’s in Austin. I spent another $100. I know, either I have to leave Texas or find a clinic that specializes in liquor warehouse addiction.

Cuban Rum - Drinking Notes

At long last, the Cuban embargo is over! Well, at least, it’s over enough. A little more than a week ago, President Obama relaxed the embargo on Cuban goods, including allowing licensed U.S. travelers to Cuba to bring home merchandise worth up to $400, of which $100 can be spent on alcohol and tobacco combined. Say no more, Mr. President, because we called us up some travelers and bingo: two bottles of Cuban awesome hit our shelves in a matter of days. Which two? First the immortal rum base of the world, true Havana Club 7 Year (besides the U.S. who has labored under the long reign of over-commercialized Bacardi swill for most of our lives); the second, extra anejo Santiago de Cuba, 12 years encased in oak.

Cream Soda - Drinking Notes

The Hollenberger’s favorite pop, cream soda, never lasted very long in the domain. My sister and I love it, but we’d also have to fight Dad for them. The very first bottle of liquor I ever bought was Bacardi 151 (yikes, I know) which obviously needed to be mixed. I had an idea of what it would taste like, so I picked up some A&W cream soda as a mixer knowing that I’d drink the A&W regardless. I actually made my first drink that night; a cloying concoction of cream soda, peppermint schnapps and 151 named ‘cream silk’ because it hid the 151 burn quite well.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Drink: You'll Shoot Your Eye Out
Establishment: Distil (via the Bon Vivants)
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
First Connoisseur: Holly, recreated

2 ounces aged rum (we used Brugal 1888)
1/2 ounce Becherovka
1/2 ounce Benedictine
1/4 ounce cinnamon syrup (we used our brown spice syrup)
3 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir. Garnish with an orange twist. If you would like to flame orange oil over the drink like we did, squeeze the twist over a lighter above the center of the poured cocktail. Drop the twist in afterwards.

We thought that this drink dreamed up for artisan cocktail bar Distil in Milwaukee is the perfect Christmas Eve tipple. Named after the famous line of A Christmas Story, the You'll Shoot Your Eye Out is a mixture of spicy mint that reminds me of a Stinger if Santa was drinking them. At my first taste of this old-tasting cocktail, I said that all I needed was a cigar and a dog. Do yourself a favor and check out Distil - the bartenders are friendlier there than at Bryant's and the drinks are crafted with as much care. Check out Bon Vivants too.

Hot Buttered Rum

I have to tell you that I thought that Arena's own Lake Louie Milk Stout was this year's ultimate Christmas drink - thick, yummy pour, don't have to get up and mix them, and they are conveniently made minutes away. That plan was completely blown by the return of M.R. Hoffman and a quick succession of multiple milky ones led to diabolical amounts of gin. It was as though Santa (Satan in anagram remember) wanted me to remember the old Wisconsin adage, "Beer before liquor..." Unfortunately, the adage did not come to me before I was offering up porcelain prayers.

Lesser men would have taken such an experience as time to re-evaluate their alcohol consumption, but I came to the only sane explanation for the occurrence - I was lazy. If I would have taken greater care to slow down and appreciate the wonders of alcohol during this most festive of seasons, last Sunday wouldn't have looked like I was wearing a zombie costume from Halloween.

So, I am going to release a somewhat time-intensive, but spectacular homemade recipe for Hot-Buttered Rum. We have prepared this in so many ways - with batter like classic recipes in Wisconsin, via our Crock Pot, and others, but riffing of the oldest recipes still seem best. So, going back to the old bar master Jerry Thomas, who's spiced rum is not battered, but buttered, here's our version of the non-lazy, holiday-inspired hot-buttered rum...

Hecatomb

I guess we left up the CLOSED sign on the Firewater Lounge for the month of October. Sorry, our schedules get the better of us every once in a while. So let’s waste no more time and get the thirsty Lounge lizards a drink. How about the Halloweenie original, Hecatomb? It features two slightly unusual ingredients that most people will find appealing: St. James rhum and Zwack.

Winter Daiquiri

Drink: Winter Daiquiri

Establishment: Hale Pele
Location: Portland, Oregon

First Connoisseur: Cindy (Remake)

1 ½ ounces aged rum (We used St. James)

¾ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

½ ounce vanilla syrup (simple syrup with 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla)

¼ ounce allspice dram (We used St. Elizabeth)

If you are feeling a bit tiki in the middle of winter (and it seems we are about this time every year since we posted the Maleku Mai Tai at this point last year), you might enjoy this little cocktail. A bit sour for my tastes, but if you love the taut pucker of the classic Daiquiri, this one’s for you.

Happy New Year!

Little else says ‘New Year’s Eve’ than champagne. Rarely does a new year pass without a bit of bubbly here at the Firewater Lounge. So, if champagne is on your shopping list, keep these pointers in mind. First, if you are not going to drink it right away, buy it at room temperature. If you need to cool it quick, use the following method. Get a wine bucket (or any bucket), fill it with equal parts water and ice and your bottle of champagne. Salt the ice with regular table salt. Spin the bottle within the ice every four minutes. In 12 minutes you will have cold champagne.

Hard Cider - Drinking Notes

Not much is more American than hard cider. John Adams drank a tankard of the stuff every morning and proclaimed it was the reason for his longevity (Adams died on Independence Day in 1826 at the age of 90). It featured prominently in the 1840 presidential election that promoted William Henry Harrison as the common man’s candidate since he was the hard cider imbiber. Strangely, though, the only hard cider available by our college years was Woodchuck, a run-of-the-mill, uncomplicated green apple slug (but still light years ahead of gut-destroying malty hard lemonades). Now, however, we have a number of interesting hard ciders from which to choose.

Daiquiri

Three things that Cuba has in abundance (or so we've been told despite that stupid embargo) are sugar, limes, and rum. Legend has it that an American mining engineer fresh off the Spanish-American war named Jenning Cox happened to be living and working in the small town of Daiquiri, Cuba, in 1905. As the tale goes, Cox ran out of gin at a party and switched to the local favorite, rum, to mix with his limes and sugar... and presto, the Daiquiri was born! One of the most loved rum drinks next to the resurging Mojito, the Daiquiri has never really seen a downturn in popularity.

Drinking Notes

In a whiplash-inducing fashion, we cannot simply do cocktails forever in this blog. Sometimes you are just too tired to get off you butt to mix, so this series is dedicated to the stuff we take straight.

First, we are looking for a beer for Cindy to take to football games. Light, refreshing, and approachable are keys to what we require. Our hunt started with Scuttlebutt.

Scuttlebutt Brewing

Drinking Notes Series

This Everett, Washington, brewery offers a solid gamut of beers. We chose four of its beers to try: the Amber Ale, the Homeport Blonde, the Porter, and the Tripel Seasonal. The Amber Ale is closest in taste to the regular domestics with double the bittering units of, say, Miller Light. Hoppy in smell and not real distinctive in flavor, the Amber Ale was our least favorite of the four. The Homeport Blonde is Cindy's beer so far. Crisp and lemony with less hops than the Amber. The Blonde is also great looking in a glass, but might not have the strength of flavor for the boys. Tripel is a high-alcohol pale ale; Scuttlebutt's Tripel fits the bill with a pale ale at 9% alcohol and with scents of pears and grain. It doesn't have a strong flavor profile but tastes clean and light on a hot day. Scuttlebutt's Porter is probably the most interesting of the bunch. It pours out blacker than black with a small head. It has a coffee aroma and flavor leading to a hoppy finish with a layer of milk chocolate throughout. All in all, none of the four have dominating 'beer' taste, which is great for Cindy, our beer newbie, while possibly disappointing for our beer connoisseurs.

Potential cocktail compliments: All most all Scuttlebutt will get obliterated in a cocktail, but the Porter might work in a 1700s American tipple called the Rattle-Skull - make it before I do with the following recipe. Mix all in a mug - 3/4 ounce dark rum, 3/4 ounce brandy, 12 ounces (1 bottle) Scuttlebutt Porter, juice of half a lime. Grate nutmeg on top.