Tag: alcohol
Chartreuse With Envy
All spirits come with a good bit of lore and legend, though few come even close to the mythos surrounding Chartreuse. More than a color, “chartreuse” also refers to a region, Carthusian Monks, and of course, the liqueur. Part of the allure is the scarcity, raising prices to the realm of top shelf bottles, if you can even get your hands on it at all. At the end of the day, when happy hour rolls around, its inimitable flavor cements its place in modern mixology.
An Elixir For Long Life
Fortunately for us history buffs, the origins of Chartreuse are well documented. In 1605, a mysterious manuscript containing the recipe for an “elixir of long life” was presented to the Carthusian monks in Paris by François Hannibal d’Estrées, Marshal to King Henry IV. The document described an elaborate preparation using 130 plants, flowers, roots, and spices. It was so complex that it would take the monks more than a century to fully interpret and bring to fruition.
It’s said that this was the number of ingredients because it simply encompassed every single potentially beneficial flower, spice, bark, root, and berry known at that time. The contents of that manuscript have been kept a closely guarded secret ever since. Intended to be purely medicinal, none of these men of God could have imagined the debauchery it might one day inspire.
Shades of Green and Yellow
Due to lack of access, most people think of Chartreuse as having only two varieties: green and yellow. While they’re not wrong, there are more variants of each one, differentiated by blending and aging.
Élixir Végétal
Small adjustments were made for the next 100 years, until 1737 when Élixir Végétal De La Grande-Chartreuse was officially bottled for sale. This concentrated tonic remains exactly the same to this day, aside from the tiniest reduction in ABV, from 71 – 69%, rumored to fit through a loophole allowing it in carry-on luggage. Made from a neutral alcohol traditionally distilled from beet sugar, a few drops can perk up any cocktail, much like bitters, or even be enjoyed straight-up. With top notes of anise, a subtle bitterness yet balanced sweetness, it has a complexity that’s impossible to describe in a few short sentences. Anything I write sounds polarizing, off-putting, or at odds with any conventional flavor pairings, and yet the actual tasting experience is anything but.
Core Colors
Green Chartreuse, the most iconic expression of the art, came soon after. This “health liqueur” gets its color naturally from chlorophyll, befitting of its herbaceous, slightly spicy flavor. Yellow Chartreuse uses more sugar and is lower proof, producing a downright syrupy consistency that could replace any additional sweeteners in a cocktail with greater nuances of citrus and delicate florals.
1605 and MOF
Launched in 2005 to celebrate 400 years of distilling, Liqueur d’Elixir 1605 pays tribute to an alternate creation, Liqueur de Santé, which was later renamed Green Chartreuse in 1840. Blending a small amount of the powerful Herbal Elixir de la Grande-Chartreuse into the standard green Chartreuse base, gives it the familiar intense botanicals of green Chartreuse with a less sweet finish. Similarly Chartreuse MOF is a collaboration between the Carthusian monks and France’s prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (MOF) sommeliers, released in 2008. Dryer than the classic yellow, it’s intended as a digestif after dinner, never to be muddied as a mixer. And you had better sip slowly, because both will ring up at over $200 per bottle.
V.E.P. Green and V.E.P. Yellow
V.E.P. stands for “Vieillissement Exceptionnellement Prolongé,” otherwise known as Exceptionally Prolonged Aging. These are the rarest of all expressions as they must rest in oak barrels for up to 20 years, though no one but a few monks could tell you exactly how long. Smoother and more mellow as a result, while still carrying the original character of the green and yellow base. Each bottle is a real investment though, easily reaching price tags well into the thousands, if you can find it in the first place.
Liqueur Worthy of Devotion
Leveraging sales of the tonic to support monastic life, the monks began to produce just enough of the famed alcohol to allow a life dedicated to prayer, study, and silence. They could easily double or triple production, or completely outsource the process to strike it rich, but that’s never been the point of Chartreuse. Today, only two monks know the full formula and oversee the blending of those classified 130 botanicals. Their work happens largely out of public view, and that air of secrecy only deepens the mystique.
Ironically, that humility and devotion has helped transform Chartreuse into some of the most coveted bottles around. As cocktail culture has exploded in the past two decades, bartenders have rediscovered just how irreplaceable it is. Classics like The Last Word, Bijou, and Alaska cocktail rely on its unmistakable herbal intensity; there is simply no substitute. This elixir is indeed proving to have a very long life, with no end in sight.
Sleepy Martini
There is no greater tease than the espresso martini. Tall, sleek, and slender, the elegant glass is filled to the brim with dark amber liquid, topped with a velvety crown of foam. The very air around it seems to buzz with the aroma of roasted coffee. Should you succumb to temptation, you’ll get a jolt of caffeine, masking the intoxicating effects of the alcohol. Too boozy for breakfast but too stimulating for a nightcap, this classic cocktail remains firmly out of my reach when adhering to a rational schedule.
Odds Bar & Bistro – Decaf Espresso Martini
Surely, I can’t be the only one that wants to imbibe and still fall asleep at night. And yet, decaf coffee liqueur is simply not a thing. As one of three primary ingredients, this is a problem. There’s also the shot of straight espresso, but how hard is it to swap that for decaf in the first place? Really, it’s such an easy fix, it’s laughable.
When Is A Martini Not A Martini?
One thing that bothers me about the espresso martini, besides mixing uppers and downers, is that it really isn’t a martini at all. By definition, a martini is classically made with gin and dry vermouth, optionally garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Strong, dry, and served straight up in a chilled martini glass, it’s the consummate definition of elegance.
The only thing that the espresso martini shares, like many other variants that rely on additional flavorings and sweeteners bolstered by vodka, is the glass. This is important to clarify not to belittle the espresso martini, but to free ourselves of the pretense that it must contain x, y, or z. For the espresso martini, there are no rules aside from stemware.
Robust and Relaxing
Writing out a recipe for something so simple feels silly, but I know just as well as anyone that a good recipe doesn’t have to be ground-breaking, ambitious, or even terribly innovative. It has to be delicious, of course, foolproof, and something you’d want to make again and again. That’s the case for this cocktail, which could be cut down to as few as three real ingredients at its core.
That’s part of the appeal, too; something that can be whipped up on the fly, even when your liquor cabinet is mostly empty, when friends show up unannounced, or when you just need something to take the edge off, post haste. This is the one that I’m shaking out more often than not, so I think you might enjoy it, too.
Wordless Wednesday: Cheers to a New Year!
Daydreamer – Right Hand
Daydreamer – Tarzan
Cabana Club – Hugo Spritz
400 Conejos – Tasting Flight
400 Conejos – Mexican Mule
400 Conejos – Hibiscus Mezcalita
The Golden Horn – Pear Cosmo
The Golden Horn – Draft Paper Plane
Snooze – Bloody Mary
Postino – Rare Air Sparkling Rose Wine
Pinthouse Pizza – Beer
Wordless Wednesday: Liquid Investments
Wonky Blends – Brainstorm Smoothie
The Human Bean – Mexi-Oat Shaken Espresso
Sequoia Sake – Tasting Flight
Rosaluna Mezcal
Rosaluna Mezcal Margarita
Nori – Berry Hibiscus Mule
The Roosevelt Room – Calvados Julep
Bodhi Viet Vegans – Mango Smoothie
BOA Steakhouse – Smoke Show
BOA Steakhouse – Boa-Loma
BOA Steakhouse – Boa Fusion
Back 2 The Video Store – Toy Story
Bloody Good Soup
One could argue, without any difficulty, that a classically mixed Bloody Mary is a soup. Sure, the notable addition of vodka may give pause, but who said that soups were defined by their sobriety? Soup is merely defined as a “liquid food,” which also means that perhaps smoothies and milkshakes could be included in the category. A Bloody Mary, though, already has the basic vegetal building blocks of a cozy tomato soup, lightened and lengthened with chilled spirits, like a tipsy gazpacho served in a glass. Honestly, that sounds pretty good, too.
But I digress. We’re talking about the Bloody Mary here; robust and highly seasoned, often spiked with Worcestershire, Tabasco, and plenty of black pepper, at least. It wouldn’t take much at all to make that into a meal. Hell, you could just heat up the foundational mix and call it a day, but we can do better. Taking a page from classic tomato soup, it’s not a radical departure from tradition, which is a large part of its charm. Just layer in some caramelized onions, cook up the celery instead of saving it for a garnish, and add a bit more vegan bacon for that all-important protein, and now it’s looking like a proper bowl of soup.
We can’t leave garnishes out of the picture, though. They’re almost more essential to the Bloody Mary than the vodka itself. On that note, I chose to add my vodka towards the end, rather than let it cook out, because it should live up to the name, right? You could add it earlier on in the cooking process, along with the vegetable stock, to make this more family friendly, if you absolutely had to.
Happy hour and dinnertime often overlap, so why not cut to the chase and make both count? If it’s too hard to get past the idea of Bloody Mary soup being different from the original cocktail, then just think of it like a surprisingly relaxing, mildly intoxicating tomato soup, and you won’t be disappointed.