Pandora's Book: LUPEC Relaunches Cocktail Recipe Collection

Also, sometimes it's not necessarily a cocktail but an ingredient. Herbal liqueurs such as Chartreuse and Benedictine have made a huge comeback. People think of them as "new" ingredients, but the truth is they were staples on a bar in the late 1800's. At that time no one had quite figured out how to make fruit liqueurs shelf stable so they would turn quickly. The result of that was a bar reliant on the shelf stable herbal liqueurs. My favorite example of a cocktail from the late 1800's:

• Widow's Kiss

  1.5 oz Calvados or Apple Brandy
  .75 oz Benedictine
  .75 oz Yellow Chartreuse
  Dash of Angostura Bitters

Deeeeeelish!

PL: Bourbon Belle suggests that we may have moved the Scofflaw beyond extinction after plugging it so much in Sept/early Oct (heh, heh...what can I say, there's a lot to be said on the topic!)

Boston has a small but very vibrant cocktail scene which is becoming more and more sophisticated by the day. Venues like Green Street, No.9 Park, Eastern Standard, Deep Ellum, and the recently opened DRINK have all had a profound impact on how people think about what's in their glass, and these venues have done a great job championing classic cocktails through education. Still, getting people to drink spirits besides vodka is a challenge I constantly face at my waitressing job.

How do you get (or try to get) people to move beyond vodka? Let us pretend (briefly) that I love me some liquid Jolly Rancher with -tini suffix appended. What classic cocktail might you recommend that I take a chance on?

PL: Well, one trick that the Milk and Honey bartenders use is to substitute gin in whatever vodka-based concoction you order (cosmo with gin, par example); most guests imbibe none the wiser & wonder why their drink tastes so good. ;)

As I am a humble waitress with no hands on access to the booze itself, I might try for a harder sell at the table. I'd start by suggesting a gin-based drink, as gin is essentially just flavored vodka, and suggest a tart, slightly sweet citrus-y cocktail, such as a Pegu Club or an Aviation. Both balance the botanicals in gin with citrus quite well, working with the spirits' inherent flavors while providing a refreshing, tart tipple. The Blue Skies is also delightful; it includes Applejack, which I might mention to you as a way of tricking you into thinking it's similar to a Sour Apple-tini. They bear no semblance, but I bet you'd like the drink. I may even call it a Blue Sky-Tini, just for you.

• Pegu Club

  2 oz London Dry gin
  .75 oz fresh lime
  .75 oz orange curacao
  1 dash Angostura
  1 dash orange bitters

  Shake ingredients well over ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

• Aviation

  1.5 oz Gin
  .5 oz Maraschino Liqueur
  .75 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

  Shake with ice and strain into your favorite vintage cocktail glass! (Another version of this drink features creme de violette; I'd save this for a later time, when the guest is feeling more adventurous with non-vodka cocktails.)

• Blue Skies

  1 oz Applejack
  1 oz Gin
  .5 oz Lemon Juice
  .25 oz Simple Syrup
  1 or dashes grenadine

  Shake with cracked ice and strain into your favorite vintage cocktail glass!

Your blog has some wonderfully educational posts about Genever and Fernet and whatnot. Where in the Boston area do you recommend shopping for more obscure ingredients?

PL: Brix is a great stop for all things cocktail in the South End. Other LUPEC approved venues for obscure ingredients:

• The Wine & Cheese Cask has a surprisingly good selection
• Christina's is great for all those obscure botanicals (angelica honey syrup anyone?) [Yes, please --Bostonist]
• Mall Liquors out by Alewife -- they carry the entire Haus Alpenz line (who you can thank for the reappearance of Creme de Violette, Pimento Dram & Old Tom in the marketplace, for example.) We're not sure why.

Which formerly unavailable anachronistic ingredient are you happiest to see revived? (Have any of you concocted something new with Old Tom gin?)

PL: I think I'm happiest about Old Tom, just because I'm a history geek and I'm curious to see how different so may of these classic drinks will taste when made in their original form, with Old Tom as base. And I've really enjoyed sloe gin since the real stuff became available this summer. Yum!

Recently there are way more varieties of absinthe showing up in liquor stores around here. (By "way more", we mean three or four, rather than zero.) Which of them do you find works best in cocktails? (The one with the eyes? The one with the monkey? Not, I'm guessing, the toxic-green South American stuff?)

HP: Each of the varieties of Absinthe are remarkably different. As far as cocktail prep is concerned I would say sweetness is the biggest variable. As is the case with most cocktails, we suggest tasting the ingredients separately before mixing to have a clear idea of what is going into your cocktail. If you find the absinthe on the sweeter side it will provide you the opportunity to scale back on other sweeter ingredients in your cocktail (ie liqueurs or syrups) and adjust according to taste. You will see quality bartenders taste their cocktails and adjust before serving to guests and we strongly encourage this because there are so many variables, ie brands are remarkably different, citrus can be different depending on season, etc etc. And lastly, the truth is everyone in the world can say a particular cocktail and recipe is great but unless it is pleasing to you and your palate it is not going to be great for you. Taste, explore, enjoy.

Left: Pink Lady (blonde) and Hanky Panky (brunette), by Matt Demers. Right: Photograph by C. Fernsebner, depicting a Scoff Law and some other oldschool cocktails consumed in June at the B-Side Lounge. Below: The Ladies, photographed by Matt Demers.