Author: John Fladd

Kentucky Mai Tai

Let’s say you are in the mood for a tropical drink — a tiki drink, if you will — and you crack open a cocktail guide or look up a recipe online, only to be intimidated. Many — not all, by any means, but many — recipes for well-known tropical drinks call for two, three or even four types of rum.

You didn’t even know that there was more than one type.

In theory, these recipes call for dark rum for flavor, white or silver rum to keep the drink from tasting like molasses, and maybe a float of some over-proof rum to add an eye-opening kick to it. Then, maybe some spiced rum to—

At any rate, this is all well and good if you have a really sophisticated palate, or you’re a professional rum taster, or maybe a pirate — but for most of us, the drink tastes like a variety of fruit juices, syrups and, you know, rum. If we want to taste a contrast between the alcohols in a mug shaped like a parrot getting a tattoo, we’ll need to head in a slightly different direction:

2 ounces rum – Whatever type of rum you like or have on hand. If you’re making a run to the liquor store, probably don’t go overboard. Buy something middle-of-the road. If you splurge on a $70-a-bottle-sipping-rum, its subtleties will be lost in a drink with more than two ingredients.

½ ounce bourbon – Again, probably not your best stuff, but not something that tastes like corn and kerosene, either.

½ ounce orange curacao

1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

½ ounce orgeat – a type of almond syrup used in tropical drinks to give a fruity backnote.

¼ ounce simple syrup

Crushed ice

Fill a cocktail shaker about 1/3 full with crushed ice.

Add all the cocktail ingredients, as well as half of your spent lime to the crushed ice, shake for 10 to 15 seconds and pour — unstrained — into a rocks glass. Drink to “Babalu” by Desi Arnaz.

Mai tais are popular, because they thread the needle of sweet and sour, exotic and comforting, and boozy and fruity. This version adds the complexity of bourbon. Bourbon can be a bit of a prima donna and, unless kept firmly under control, can easily take over a cocktail. It makes itself known in this drink, but in such a small amount it plays well with everyone else on the team.

Now, go shoo the children away from the television and call up 1989’s The Mighty Quinn with Denzel Washington. You won’t be sorry.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Sword-fighting and beer

Manchester Brewfest offers beer, cider and more

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

Manchester Brewfest organizer Peter Telge hopes it doesn’t rain this Saturday. It messes up the medieval sword fighting.

“It’s very cool,” he said. “There are about 16 combatants and they come in here, they’re ex-military and they wear the armor, and they use real swords, and they beat the heck out of each other. They were here two years ago, but they didn’t show last year because it was pouring all day. They don’t really work well in the rain.” This is on top of the bagpipers, a live band and the ax-throwing.

Manchester’s Brewfest has a reputation as being a small but fun one among New England beer festivals.

“This is our 11th annual [festival],” Telge said. “It’s not going to be a huge brewfest, but it should be a really fun brewfest. We have a good band called Nefarious Motives playing, and we will have some giveaways and auctions; it just should be a pretty good, decent time.”

The participants in this year’s event are split evenly between breweries and other vendors. “We’ll be about 20 brewers and about 20 vendors,” Telge said. “With 20 breweries, each with four or five beers each, you’re looking at 80 to 100 different choices.”

More beverage producers than just breweries will be represented, he pointed out. “There will be two cider producers, and a couple of seltzers, too.”

The Sunstone Brewing Co. (298 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 216-1808, sunstonebrewing.com) will be one of the breweries in attendance.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Sunstone brewer and co-owner Bryan Link. “We’ve been looking forward to getting our name out there a little more in the Manchester area, just looking for more exposure, and this is a great way to get it.”

Link said Sunstone is planning to bring two offerings to the Brewfest.

“One will be served on draft,” he said, and the other one comes in growlers [large glass jugs],” he said. “The draft that we’ll be bringing will be our Mai Tai Sour. We’ve added a little bit of grenadine to it to add a little color and to flavor it as well. It actually looks like a mai tai, as far as its golden color and then it separates [in the glass], and that little bit of grenadine sinks to the bottom and gives it a pink-red color. In growlers, we’re bringing our Arnold Hammer, which is like an Arnold Palmer seltzer. It’s not made with vodka or anything like that. It’s actually fermented out just like a beer, so it’s pretty much just a beer but not made with grains.”

2025 Manchester Brewfest to benefit Webster House

When: Saturday, Sept. 13, from 1 to 4 p.m.
Where: Arms Park, 10 Arms St., Manchester
Admission: General admission tickets are $50 each, VIP tickets are $60 (and allow VIPs to enter an hour early), and non-drinking Designated Driver tickets are $20.
More: manchesterbrewfest.com

Participating beverage producers will include Stark Brewing Co., Blue Water Brewery, Rhythm Cider, Samuel Adams, Woodland Farms Brewery, Three of Strong Spirits, Sun Cruiser Vodka Iced Tea, Mountain View Brewery, Omnium Brewing, Notch Brewing, Night Shift Brewing, Citizen Cider, Lithermans Limited, Sunstone Brewing, and Vermont Hard Seltzer.
Vendors will include The Rugged Axe, Dew Collective, The Potato Concept, North Hord, Darbster Animal Rescue, and Lola’s Lemonade & Dirty Pop

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Glendi is back!

A weekend of Greek food and treats in Manchester

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

One of the high points of Manchester’s food calendar, Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral’s annual Greek Food Festival, Glendi, will take place this weekend. According to festival co-chair George Skaperdas, a huge turnout is expected. His advice to a first-timer at Glendi is, “Get here early and get in line.”

“The strategy as far as I’m concerned,” he said, “is when you’re done eating, take a break and eat some more. Of course, we have the food line with all the great [prepared] food, but we have beer, wine and cold drinks in our Taverna, and inside the Community Center we have all the great desserts.”

For many Glendi-goers the main attraction is lamb.

“As always,” Skaperdas said, “we’ll have a barbecue pit to [cook] lamb barbecue and shish kebabs. We have 2,300 pounds of lamb shanks that we’re cooking.“ Because a shank comes from a hard-working area of the lamb, it requires long, slow cooking. “We’ll be here braising them all day and most of the night,” assured Skaperdas. “So there’s barbecue and then the barbecued lamb dinner of course, and we’ll have chicken dinners and a Greek meatball dinner.”

So what makes a meatball Greek?

“OK,” Skaperdas said. “You have an Italian meatball and you have a Greek meatball side by side. They have pretty much the same spice palette, but they’re mixed differently — how much oregano you put in versus how much thyme.” In any case, he said, there will be a lot of them. “We’re making another hundred pounds of meatballs today, because I thought we might be a little meatball-shy. There will be thousands of meatballs, probably 3,000 stuffed grape leaves, and 150 trays of a spanakopita [a layered dish of spinach, feta, and philo dough]; each tray has something like 48 pieces. The numbers are staggering. We will sell over five or six thousand pieces of the pita [spanakopita] over the three days. The amount of food is just crazy. It’s difficult to track the number of people, total, but we will serve probably 10,000 meals over three days.”

There will be gyros at Glendi, Skaperdas said, but not made from the cones of meat, rotating on a spit that many people expect.

“We just don’t have enough space to store the equipment, so we grill it instead. We’ve got a grill out there and the same team that’s been doing it for 25 years will be grilling it instead.

The other big draw at Glendi is the Greek pastries, Skaperdas said.

“We do have our ever famous loukoumades, which are the fried dough puffs. You can get them with honey. You can get them with powdered sugar, or cinnamon sugar, or syrup — Greek syrup, not maple syrup! We always have kataifi, which is shredded phyllo dough with walnuts and syrup. We’ll have baklava, of course, and we have volunteers here right now making finikia, which is a cookie that can be stuffed or unstuffed with a date. Then, of course, there are the kourabiedes, which are the Greek powdered sugar cookies, so we’ve got those going, too.”

All of this, Skaperdas said, is an expression of a core Greek value: hospitality.

“We do this to create income for the church and all that,” he said, “but in the end, it’s a celebration of heritage and culture. Greek people just love to share their hospitality. You can’t go into a Greek house and not get fed.”

46th Annual Glendi Festival

When: Friday, Sept. 12, and Saturday, Sept. 13, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 14, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 650 Hanover St., Manchester; free shuttle service available from Derryfield Park
More: stgeorgenh.org/activities/glendi

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/09/11

News from the local food scene

• New diner on North Elm: Brothers North End Diner is now open at 1361 Elm St. in Manchester, in the location that was formerly home to North End Bistro. The diner is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, and according to the owners will eventually have a full liquor license.

• Godspeed Dancing Lion: High-end chocolate shop Dancing Lion Chocolate (917 Elm St., Manchester, 625-4043, dancinglion.us) will have its final day of cafe service on Thursday, Oct. 2, with limited retail hours selling bars and other items “until we run out” Oct. 7 through Oct. 18, according to the shop website. In a statement on the website, owner Richard Tango-Lowy wrote, “Dancing Lion Chocolate is more than I ever expected it could be. But I always knew that it was in itself a piece of art and would one day be complete.”

• Food Network approved: As reported by Patch.com in an Aug. 27 online article, the Food Network put Alley Cat Pizza (486 Chestnut St., Manchester, 669-4533, alleycatpizzerianh.com) on its list of the best pizza in each state. The article “50 States of Pizza Slices“ at foodnetwork.com/restaurants praised “the impeccable thin-crust.”

• Four courses of coffee: LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry) will host a four-course coffee-themed dinner Friday, Sept. 12, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Each course will be crafted to include coffee and will be paired with a different LaBelle wine. Tickets are $109 through eventbrite.com.

• Street cookies: Local Street Eats (112 W. Pearl St., Nashua, 402-4435, local-streeteats.com) will host a Posy Cottage Cookie Pop-Up on Tuesday, Sept. 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. Learn the art of cookie decorating with Posy Cottage Cookies — no experience needed. Everything will be provided: freshly baked autumn-inspired cookies, rich icings and step-by-step guidance. Tickets are $35 per person through the Local Street Eats website.

Double Ka Meetha

Many years ago, we planted a peach tree. Jump forward two decades and we have more peaches than we know what to do with. Two words spring to mind: peach daiquiris.

Peach-Infused Rum

Peaches are full of delicate flavors, colors, and, er, peachiness that are alcohol-soluble. If you cut up a bunch of peaches and soak them in liquor for anywhere from a few hours to a week you will end up with something special. Don’t bother to peel them; peach skins have flavor compounds and colors that will serve you well.

Rinse your peaches, just to make sure you’re not including any dust or bugs then slice them into chunks into a large container, and cover them with rum. For an application like this, your best bet is probably to use a medium-shelf white rum. (Vodka will work perfectly well, as will whiskey. Maybe even tequila.)

I usually let it sit for four or five days, stirring or shaking it once or twice a day. When I think it’s ready, I taste a spoonful or so, then strain it through a fine-mesh strainer. If I’m feeling fancy I’ll strain it again through a coffee filter.


Peach Syrup

Wash a bunch of peaches, then dice them up. Again, I wouldn’t worry about the skins. Freeze the diced peaches for a few hours or overnight. By freezing them you’ll poke holes through all the cell walls with ice crystals.

Later, when you’ve got a little time on your hands, cook the frozen peach chunks with an equal amount (by weight) of sugar. Stir the mixture from time to time, until the juice comes to a boil, then strain that, too. If the syrup needs a little zing, squeeze a little fresh lemon juice into it, not worrying too much about measuring anything.

This syrup will last for two or three weeks in your refrigerator.

Peach Daiquiri

2 ounces peach-infused rum (see above)

1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice

2/3 ounce peach syrup (see above)

Combine all three ingredients, with ice, in a cocktail shaker. Shake until a frost line appears in the condensation on the shaker, then strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Is this rummy? A little.

Is it limey? Just limey enough. Lime is everybody’s best friend, and it gets along beautifully in this situation.

Is it peachy? Sweet Leaping Moses on a Popsicle Stick, yes. This is the perfect drink for when a child is whining. After two or three sips, you can assure them that living is easy, that their daddy is rich, and their momma’s good-lookin’. The child’s confused silence will be a little bonus.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Roast beef and Italian-style pizza

Zo’s 2 opens downtown

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

For Harpreet Singh, opening a restaurant was a leap of faith.

Singh, who opened his second restaurant, Zo’s Place 2, in Manchester in August, said he opened his first restaurant with no experience.

“It was very overwhelming,” he said. “And financially I was drained too. For 10 years I saved all my money and then I just put it in one restaurant. I didn’t get a loan for it, because I didn’t have any background. I went through a phase where I was literally crying every day.”

Singh bought a roast beef place in Nashua and threw himself into learning everything he could about running it.

“That’s where we started,” Singh said. “That’s where I learned everything.” His son was about to be born. “I told myself that before his first birthday I’d do something that he would remember his whole life, so that’s when we opened the first place.” The Singhs named it Zo’s Place, after their son. “Before his first birthday, we opened in Nashua. And then, around his second birthday, we decided to open a second place.”

Not surprisingly, when Singh was building the menu for Zo’s Place 2 he started with roast beef. “Obviously,” he said, “everybody who knows me, who knows my background, knows that roast beef is one of the things I bring wherever I go. It’s one of our signature items. It’s not just sandwiches. We do it in a calzone. It’s called roast beef three-way calzone. Basically mayo at the bottom, and then a little bit of cheese and roast beef, and we’ll put James River barbecue sauce, and then cheese at the top, and then it will be a calzone. We make a roast beef three-way pizza … we put 10 slices of roast beef on it. We want to keep our beef rare and tender. So we drizzle some barbecue sauce and mayonnaise on top of the pizza. And then we have roast beef sandwiches and also club sandwiches that we do [with roast beef]. We do a roast beef salad too.”

Singh decided to go in a different way for Zo’s pizza.

“We do hand-tossed Italian pizza,” he said. “We know that in Manchester the majority of the pizza is Greek style. And that’s what we do at our Nashua location too. But here, I wanted to hand-toss Italian pizza. It has a thinner crust, and different sauces and cheeses, too. The dough is fresh-made here in the house. Our Italian [sauce] is a little sweeter and we go lighter on cheese.”

Singh said that aside from the pizza “a lot of the menu is Greek-style. The salads that we do [are] really good, like the fresh chicken kebab salads. That’s all Greek-style. We use Greek feta with onions. And then we have gyros. We do chicken gyros, and we do lamb and beef gyros. We have rice bowls, steak tip rice bowl, chicken kebabs, grilled chicken rice bowls, chicken parm rice bowl, eggplant parm rice bowl, and then veggie rice bowl. And then we have club sandwiches, which you can get with anything you want on it — tuna club, ham and cheese club, roast beef club, cheeseburger club.”

“We have a pretty solid menu.”

Singh said it was important to him to use the same ingredients in multiple dishes.

”Let’s say we bring in a new item,” he said. “If [its ingredients are] not used in all the different menu items, they’re going to sit around for one item.” On the other hand, he used eggplant parmesan as an example. “It can go in an eggplant parm rice bowl, it could be an eggplant parm sub, it could be eggplant parm ziti, it could be the eggplant on a pizza.”

Zo’s Place 2

Where: 102 Elm St., Manchester, 836-3905
Hours: Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., and Sundays noon to 1:30 a.m.
More: zosplace.com

Featured photo: Harpreet Singh holding a Junior Roast Beef. Photo by John Fladd.

Stay in the loop!

Get FREE weekly briefs on local food, music,

arts, and more across southern New Hampshire!