Cold Weather Whiskey Drinks

While doing research on Epicurious for an upcoming chocolate dinner, I had the happy accident of stumbling across a slideshow of cold weather whiskey drinks. The slideshow was a carefully curated compilation of photographs with recipes from Bon Appetit magazine and other sources as far back as 2003. Naturally, being the whiskey lover that I am, I couldn’t click past this discovery without some further investigation. The collection featured seventeen different rye, bourbon, and Scotch whiskey cocktails that were appropriate for the current cold weather. Some of the cocktails seemed interesting enough to warrant some experimentation. Of course, I immediately eliminated all the Scotch cocktails from the list because I see no sense in wasting my good quality sipping Scotch in experimental cocktails.

Manhattan

Mention the Manhattan to me, and I instantly think of my two favorite Polish ladies: Mom and Mama Z. The Rye Manhattan is Mom’s go to before dinner cocktail, which is definitely classier and more timeless than my standard Tanqueray and Tonic. When I was talking with her about my Manhattan experiments, she explained that her favorite Manhattan was a combination of rye whiskey and Benedictine, straight up. Since I don’t have any Benedictine lurking in the liquor cabinet, I wasn’t able to try her recipe. But I was able to try Mama Z’s recipe. I fondly remember accompanying a great friend for a day or two at her parents’ house in Pennsylvania. As her father was stoking the fire and tending the grill, her mother was in the kitchen mixing a pitcher of her special Manhattans for us as our pre-dinner cocktail. She used a small juice glass to measure the liquors into her pitcher. And they were the perfect cure for our six o’clock slump! Fortunately, she was willing to share her recipe with me.

So when I saw that the Epicurious slide show featured a Manhattan recipe, of course I had to first mix one according to Mama Z’s recipe for comparison. This time I used a one-ounce measure to make just one Manhattan. I had to substitute rye for Canadian whiskey because I didn’t have any Canadian whiskey left in the house. But I did find a half-full bottle of wiśniowka and a fairly full jar of Luxardo maraschino cherries in my liquor cabinet, and there was no doubt about there being able to find a small bottle of Martini & Rossi red vermouth. So I didn’t have to improvise much more than the rye substitution. Of course, Mama Z’s Manhattan was delicious! And it was even more fortuitous that I received a call from Mama Z herself while I was drinking her Manhattan. (She was curious about the how the rye substitution worked out.)

The Manhattan recipe in the Epicurious slideshow is from London’s Chiltern Firehouse, and is a little different than the recipe to be published in their forthcoming cookbook. Because the recipe on Epicurious was for four cocktails as opposed to the single cocktail recipe in the book, it was difficult to determine whether the ratio of bourbon to vermouth differed between the two recipes. Both recipes specifically required Noilly Prat Rouge vermouth but were nonspecific about the bourbon to be used. The main differences were that the book’s recipe used a dash of orange citrate, was super specific about the amount of stirring in the mixing glass, and lacked a cherry garnish.

Since I didn’t have any orange citrate – nor did I know where to buy it – I omitted it when preparing the book recipe. My small local liquor store did not stock Noilly Prat Rouge vermouth, although they would have special ordered it for me had I asked. But I wanted to experiment with the Manhattan that evening, so I bought a small bottle of fancy Carpano Antica Formula red vermouth to use instead. I used a 1/8 teaspoon to exactly measure “a dash” of bitters into the cocktail. I did follow the specific instruction to stir the ingredients with ice in a mixing glass exactly 25 times. Apparently that matters to ensure optimal dilution, but it seems to be a moot point when serving over fresh ice. I also omitted the orange peel garnish. The resulting drink was good, but it tasted a little bit strongly of the bourbon. Then again, that is what happens when I use Buffalo Trace bourbon instead of a lesser brand.

To prepare the Chiltern Firehouse recipe posted to Epicurious, I used the same brands of bourbon and vermouth as I did for the book recipe. I felt comfortable with the math required to halve the recipe and make two Manhattans, but dividing any more than that resulted in a weird fractional cup of vermouth that I didn’t feel comfortable measuring. I used ¼ teaspoon to exactly measure two dashes of bitters into the cocktail. The Epicurious recipe did not require ice in the mixing glass and therefore did not specify the amount of stirring to be done for optimal dilution. Again, I omitted the orange peel garnish; however, I did use the cherry garnish because I love cherries. The resulting drink was better because it did not seem to taste as strongly of bourbon as the book’s recipe. It could have been because there was a greater proportion of vermouth in the recipe, or because I used more ice in the glass.

Between the three Manhattan recipes, I preferred Mama Z’s recipe. It seemed to be the smoothest of the three, perhaps because I used rye rather than bourbon or perhaps because there was a lower proportion of whiskey overall. Being an equal parts cocktail, it definitely required the least amount of fuss. However, it did require being in possession of a bottle of wiśniowka, which is an odd thing to have in a liquor cabinet.

Maple Old Fashioned

I’ve definitely heard of an Old Fashioned, but I wasn’t sure what it was so I checked my favorite cocktail website. That had multiple recipes for the Old Fashioned, ranging from the generic Bourbon Old Fashioned to Old Fashioneds made with specific brands of bourbon, such as The Buffalo Old Fashioned. In general, these recipes muddle a sugar cube with bitters, top with bourbon, and garnish with an orange slice and maraschino cherry. The Epicurious recipe for the Maple Old Fashioned essentially substitutes one teaspoon of maple syrup for the sugar cube and skips the maraschino cherry. It also gives the option to use either rye or bourbon in the drink.

Since my house bourbon has a very strong taste, I opted to use my more mellow rye whiskey. I expected the Maple Old Fashioned to taste like a sweet glass of rye, but it really just tasted like straight rye. Even though I stirred it quite thoroughly before adding the large ice cube, the maple syrup was imperceptible. Even when the ice had partially melted and diluted the rye, the maple syrup was barely noticeable. Because this drink was no different than drinking straight rye, I don’t think I’ll go through the trouble of making it again.

New York Sour

The New York Sour is a twist on the Whiskey Sour, which I recently experimented with while recipe testing the sour recipes in Shake. Sip. Stir. by Kara Newman. Since I enjoy both a good Whiskey Sour and a decent glass of red wine, I was really looking forward to trying the union of the two in the New York Sour.

The Epicurious recipe for the whiskey sour component of the cocktail was exactly the same as the book’s recipe: two parts bourbon, one part sweet, one part sour. When I tried that in my previous experiment, I used Buffalo Trace bourbon so the cocktail tasted very strongly of bourbon. This time, I made sure to shake the whiskey sour component with a full shaker of ice for sixty seconds to completely frost the metal part of my shaker and fairly well dilute the cocktail. After I poured the whiskey sour component into a rocks glass over ice, I gently poured a lower end cabernet sauvignon (as opposed to the recommended shiraz or malbec) over the back of a spoon to float the wine on top of the cocktail.

My immediate reaction to tasting the cocktail was “Wow! This is awesome!” It didn’t taste strongly of bourbon at all. I wanted to text my good friend living in NYC to tell her about my wonderful discovery, but we were in the middle of a snowstorm, so that would just be a tease because she wouldn’t be able to go out to get the ingredients she needed to make one herself. There was something about the addition of the wine to the whiskey sour that mellowed out the harshness of the bourbon that was really nice. There is no other way to say it.

Since I actually preferred the family recipe for the Whiskey Sour, I figured I would try using that as a base for the New York Sour. I also figured I might try a one ounce float of wine rather than the meager half ounce float used in the recipe. So, in the end, I stirred one ounce of frozen lemonade concentrate, one ounce of cold water, and one ounce of Buffalo Trace bourbon with ice in a rocks glass, and then floated one ounce of cabernet sauvignon on top. It was so good. Especially with a bowl of French Onion Soup during a snowstorm.






Sazerac

The Sazerac is my standard order every time I go for drinks at Luke on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Especially during Happy Hour when their specialty cocktails are half price. Even though I can’t recall ever having had a Sazerac in New Orleans, there is something about having one outside of New Orleans that reminds me of the good times that I’ve had there with my friends. So I was pretty excited to see that the Sazerac was included in the Epicurious slideshow.

The two hardest parts about the Epicurious recipe were figuring out the portion size and waiting the two hours for it to chill. The recipe doesn’t say how many it serves, but calls for 12 lemon twist garnishes, so I’d guess that means it makes 12 servings. But with three cups of rye whiskey, that is a little bit more than a two-ounce cocktail per person. Fortunately, the math doesn’t matter to me, as I have no other cocktails lined up for the rest of the week and can drink one in the evening for as long as it lasts. The recipe itself was very very simple. Mix everything in a pitcher and chill for at least two hours or up to one day. The most difficult ingredient in the list was absinthe, which I don’t have in my liquor cabinet, so I substituted Pernod in accordance with the recipe headnote. It was only one tablespoon, so it should not make a terrible lot of difference. As I am starting to learn about different types of bitters, I found it odd that the recipe was nonspecific about the type of bitters to be used. It just called for “bitters.” Not even “aromatic bitters.” But I supposed that being written in 2013, Angostura Bitters were so universal that it didn’t have to be spelled out. So that is what I used.

It was almost 1030pm when my Sazerac emerged from its big chill, but I was so eager to try it that I poured a scant finger width straight up in my rocks glass. I really expected it to just taste like a glass of rye because the measurements of the other ingredients were so minute compared to the rye. But it was actually more complex than just a glass of rye – I could tell that the simple syrup mellowed out the harshness of the rye and I could taste the hint of Pernod. It was really good.

The next day I pulled out the pitcher of Sazerac, thoroughly stirred it, and poured a proper amount straight up in my rocks glass to accompany the bowl of French Onion Soup that I was having for dinner. It was as lovely as the day before. Definitely not straight rye whiskey. Of course, it is fortunate that I like it because I still have so much of it left over.

Maple Ginger Toddy

I have loved the Hot Toddy ever since I lived in Central Europe during my junior year of college. I am so bad that I pretty much recommend having a Hot Toddy to my friends at their merest mention of feeling under the weather. My recipe is so simple that it isn’t even documented in the family cookbook or any of the addenda: fill a mug halfway with boiling water, stir in as much sugar or honey as you can dissolve in the water, fill the remaining half of the mug with whiskey or spiced rum (whichever you have on hand.) If that doesn’t break up what ails you, it will put you happily to sleep.

On a day that was snowy enough to cancel plans for a gingerbread making party, I decided to try the recipe for the Maple Ginger Toddy. That recipe looked very similar to my hot toddy recipe. The water was brewed into a very strong ginger tea; the tea bag recommended steeping one tea bag in eight ounces of water for eight to ten minutes whereas the recipe required two teabags in six ounces of water for five minutes. The proportion of bourbon relative to the boiling water was significantly less than my recipe. And the amount of maple syrup was also significantly less than the amount of sugar or honey in my recipe. Although the recipe called for maple-flavored bourbon, there was a work around which involved using regular bourbon and adding some additional maple syrup to the drink instead. That was genius since I can’t imagine what future use I would have for maple-flavored bourbon.

Interesting was the best word to describe the cocktail. There were a lot of different distinct strong flavors going on - ginger, maple, lemon, bourbon – that competed for attention. So it was neither very smooth nor very balanced. But it was warm, which made it good at the time. But in the future, I’ll most likely be sticking with my simpler traditional recipe.

The Verdict

Overall, the majority of cold weather whiskey cocktails that I tried from the Epicurious slideshow were winners. The Manhattan, the New York Sour, and the Sazerac were all excellent, but the recipes from the family cookbook were even better than the Epicurious recipes. The Maple Old Fashioned and the Maple Ginger Toddy were not good at all. The Maple Old Fashioned tasted like straight rye. A simple toddy of hot water, sugar or honey, and whiskey would be much better than the Maple Ginger Toddy, which had too many different flavors going on.

The comparisons between the cocktails may not be entirely accurate. Because these were all fairly strong cocktails, I usually limited myself to testing only one per evening, sometimes with several non-drinking evenings in between, so I had to rely on my memory to make the comparisons.

The Recipes

Mama Z’s Manhattans
The best way to make these is to use a small juice glass to measure the liquors directly into a pitcher. Mama Z says that this is a good cure for the 6 o’clock slump.

Cherry brandy (wiśniowka)
Windsor Canadian whiskey
Red vermouth

1. Measure one glassful (part) of each liquor into a pitcher. Stir well.
2. Fill glasses with ice and 1-2 maraschino cherries. It’s okay to get cherry syrup on ice.
3. Pour over ice and cherries when ready to drink.

Whiskey Sour
This recipe was previously published in the Equinox Cocktails - Sours Edition post, but it is so good that it bears repeating. If this is too strong, serve it over ice. And if a pitcher is too much, use a jigger to measure the parts into a single rocks glass.

1 can frozen lemonade
1 can whiskey
1 can water

1. Mix in a pitcher
2. Drink the glass of your choice.