Author: John Fladd

I know that I don’t need to remind you of it, but Feb. 2 is National Tater Tot Day. I’m sure you’ve already put up the decorations and picked out your outfit, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to weasel out on you.

I was going to develop a Tater Tot-themed cocktail, made, of course, with potato vodka. I thought about infusing it with actual Tater Tots or french fries. I was working on some solid puns for names. I was even — and I admit this was a personal low point — considering using ketchup as the sweet element.

But ultimately I had to ask myself whether I wanted to subject you, myself, or even a good-quality vodka to this kind of gimmicky cocktail indignity.

So let’s take a big swing in the other direction and make an attempt at class and sophistication. I don’t know about you, but sophistication has proved somewhat elusive for me over the past couple of years. I’d like to explore a Zelda Cocktail.

You know, Zelda.

Zelda Fitzgerald.

The novelist, playwright and artist? She was married to F. Scott Fitzgerald?

No. Not the Legend of Zelda princess.

OK, when she’s remembered at all today, Zelda Fitzgerald is known largely for her struggles with mental health, alcoholism and a really dysfunctional marriage, but for a brief shining moment in the 1920s she was widely known as one of the most beautiful, brilliant and sophisticated women alive. And a cocktail dedicated to her is a little-known classic.

Like Zelda herself, this drink is delightful, with an unexpected challenge. In this case the challenge is bison grass vodka.

You might hear rumors about Żubrówka vodka being illegal — and it was, apparently, for several years — but it is available in liquor stores, if you look for it hard enough. If you aren’t up for a multi-state vodka quest, I’m going to make a substitution suggestion. If you muddle a sprig of thyme when you are muddling the mint for this drink, it will add a subtle herbal back-note that will make a guest stop and wonder what is going on.

Apparently the Zelda Fitzgerald experience was a lot like that — people would be overcome with delight in her presence, only to wonder, just a little, what they had gotten themselves into.

The Zelda

Several sprigs of fresh mint. (As I write this, I find myself writing the word “mink,” which I think would please Mrs. Fitzgerald.)

• 2 ounces Żubrówka Bison Grass Vodka or the best-quality vodka you have, plus a sprig of thyme
• 1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
• ¾ ounce orgeat (almond syrup)

Muddle the mint (and thyme, if you are including it) in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.

Add five or six ice cubes and the other ingredients to the shaker. Shake vigorously.

Strain into a coupé glass and drink while it is very cold.

Featured photo: The Zelda. Photo by John Fladd.

How to squeeze a lime

(Or a lemon, or an orange, or a tangerine, but limes lend themselves to being squeezed; they have the fewest inhibitions of any citrus fruit.)

Method 1 – Pure brute strength

Wash your hands.

Carefully place the lime on a cutting board in front of you. Carefully cut the lime in half.

Center your thoughts, then pick up half a lime, hold it over a bowl, and crush it.

The key here is rage. Naked, blind fury, if you can manage it. If you are a sports enthusiast, or a middle child, this should be fairly easy for you. The pain from previously unknown cuts on your hand will only make you angrier, eliciting even more juice.

Method 2 – An improvised reamer

A fork works well for this. So does a pair of kitchen tongs.

Cut the fruit in half, as before, but this time retain your composure. Insert the business end of the fork or tongs into half a lime, then twist it around, while squeezing with the hand that’s holding the lime. Tell the lime, “You might feel a little discomfort.”

You should be pleased with the result.

Method 3 – A hand-held juicer

Sometimes called a hand-juicer — though that implies that it actually juices hands — this looks something like the love child of a pair of pliers and a tea-strainer. It’s usually yellow or green — depending on the size of the fruit you intend to squeeze — and some models have a second squeezing cup, so you can tackle lemons and limes. It seems very gadget-y and might not fill you with confidence at first glance. It does a shockingly good job of squeezing citrus, though, and has become my juice extractor of choice.

A note on fresh orange juice

If you only need a few ounces of orange juice for a cocktail, a very good option is squeezing a couple of clementines. They have a fresher, zingier taste than orange juice from a carton, and they are roughly the same diameter as a lemon, so they are relatively easy to squeeze. I have found that after I have juiced both halves of a clementine, if I stack the spent carcasses of the two halves in the larger bowl of my hand-held juicer and squeeze them again I can extract a little more juice and theoretically a little citrus oil, which will intensify the flavor of the juice.

A very juicy cocktail

This is an adaptation of something called a Tangipahoa Planter’s Punch that I found in an extremely distressed copy of 1937’s Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix ‘em:

Ingredients

• 2 ounces pineapple/mango juice. Could you use plain pineapple juice? The Fruit Police, or possibly the Tangipahoa Parish Liquor Commission, would probably not come crashing through the window, if you did.
• 2 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice (see above)
• 2 ounces fresh squeezed clementine juice. Could you just use Tropicana? That’s between you and your conscience.
• 3 ounces white rum
• ½ ounce raspberry syrup (see below). Could you use grenadine instead? I suppose so, if you were a COWARD!
• 5 to 6 ice cubes

Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker, and shake until the ice starts making “I can’t hold it together much longer, Captain” sounds.

Pour into a pint glass and garnish as you see fit.

A lot of tropical drinks have a sort-of generic, yeah-there’s-some-fruit-in-here background flavor. The nice thing about squeezing your own juices into this one is that you can taste each individual ingredient. The lime, clementine and raspberry all step forward and raise a hand if you look for them. The rum stands in the back with hands in pockets, humming to itself.

You know those miserable winter days when all you want to do is sit by a fire, read a book and eat soup? Alternate that with drinking this and lying on the couch and watching game shows. You’ll feel 12 percent more optimistic about life.

Raspberry syrup

Combine an equal amount (by weight) of frozen raspberries and sugar in a small saucepan.

Cook over medium heat. The ice crystals in the berries have already punctured the cell walls, and you will be surprised at how much liquid they give off.

Bring to a boil, to make sure that all the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat.

Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, and store in your refrigerator for about a month.

Feature photo: Tangipahoa Planter’s Punch. Photo by John Fladd.

“I’m an attractive person,” you might say. And you’d be right.

“And,” you might add, “I tip well. I don’t ask for anything complicated when we go out — a gin and tonic, or a sea breeze — something fast and easy to make. So why aren’t the drinks I get at the bar very good?

“I mean, they’re all right: gin, tonic, lime; or vodka and cranberry juice. There’s not much to mess up there. They just don’t taste as good as when I make them at home. Why is that?”

This is a good question.

It isn’t about the competence of your bartender. Trust me, she knows what she’s doing. And it isn’t that she doesn’t care; I’m sure she’s a conscientious professional who wants you to have a good drink.

The problem is that you’ve been ordering something utterly forgettable.

Don’t get me wrong. Classics are classics for a reason. There are very few things in life better than a properly made gin and tonic. The laughter of a small child is a petty and grating thing compared to the piney, slightly bitter dance of gin, quinine and lime.

But look at it from your bartender’s position.

There’s a good chance she didn’t expect to be working at all tonight, but Sheila called in sick, so she was stuck. She was able to get a babysitter at the last minute, but this is the first time she’s left her kid with this new sitter, and she’s not sure she trusts the large numbers of facial piercings the girl had.

Then, there’s Stanley, at the end of the bar. He tipped her an extra 50 cents once, a year ago, and ever since then he’s felt entitled to her attention, even during rushes.

Plus, it’s Thursday, which means that there aren’t as many customers as on the weekend, but somehow the bar moves just as much booze, which brings its own set of issues.

All of which is to say, your margarita, rocks-no-salt, probably didn’t benefit from her complete focus and attention.

You know how sometimes you pull into your driveway at the end of the day and have no memory of driving home? That’s how she just made your completely reasonable, utterly forgettable cocktail.

So, what’s the solution?

For the sake of everything Good and Decent in the Universe, please don’t order something obnoxious with a cutesy name. Or anything with 17 ingredients. Or anything that will involve dusting off a bottle from the back of the bar.

What you want is a gin sour.

And what is a gin sour, you ask?

It’s a gimlet, but with lemon.

I sense that you are still staring at me, waiting for further explanation.

OK — a gin sour is one of those very basic cocktails that is a cinch to make, takes 45 seconds and is truly delicious. It has three ingredients: gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup. It uses the same proportions as about six other cocktails: two ounces of alcohol, an ounce of citrus, and three quarters of an ounce of something sweet — the same as a margarita or a daiquiri or a lemon drop.

The difference is, nobody else has ordered one this week.

So, just like stopping for your dry cleaning on the way home makes you pay more attention to your commute, making a gin sour will be just out of the ordinary enough to grab your bartender’s full attention. It’s not difficult, but she will have to keep her mind on what she’s doing.

And you get a very nice drink.

So nice that you will probably start making it for yourself at home.

Gin sour

• 2 ounces gin (see below)
• 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ¾ ounce simple syrup

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.

Shake.

Strain.

Drink.

So, the question you are probably asking yourself right now is, what kind of gin?

Wanting to give you the best possible information, I made three gin sours last evening, identical except for the variety of gin. The floral gin was exceptional, truly delicious. But so was the version with gunpowder gin; the lemon really played a leading role. The dry gin was slightly more astringent, which gave it a delicious booziness on the back end. You would really have to make a deliberate effort to mess this drink up

And after three of them in quick succession you will be astonished at what sparkling conversationalists your houseplants are.

A hot drink for the holidays

I’ve got a rule of thumb that makes a deceptive amount of sense.

When you’re looking at used copies of cookbooks, buy the one that is in the worst shape. If it’s badly stained and has torn pages, a broken spine and mysterious burn marks, that’s the one that has seen some action. Somebody was loyal enough to the recipes in it to take it into the belly of the beast. It must have something to recommend it.

Anyone I’ve ever given that advice to has nodded and agreed that this seems really reasonable.

The deception comes into play over time. Over the years, I’ve adopted an alarming number of these battle-scarred books, most of which have gone relatively unused.

A case in point is 1969’s Esquire Drink Book. I don’t remember how it ended up in my cocktail bookcase, but it is a perfect time capsule of Swinging ’60s bachelor drinks.

For example, the Bee-Bee.

Even by the standards of the time, the description of the Bee-Bee is a little tone-deaf, sexism and other isms-wise.

“This will bring on leprechauns and williwaws after the third cup,” he says.

Given that 3 cups of bourbon is 24 ounces of 100-proof alcohol, I suspect that it would be more likely to bring on paramedics and divorce attorneys, and yet—

Classic Bee-Bee

Ingredients

• Zest of one lime – one of the really dark, leathery-looking ones
• Zest of one orange – just a regular, undemanding orange
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 cup bourbon – given how much you are going to adulterate it, probably not your best stuff.

Also, have an instant-read thermometer.

Heat all ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, over medium-low heat. (The lower temperature will give the alcohol time to strip some of the flavorful oils from the citrus rinds.) Bring to a temperature of about 170º. Alcohol boils off at a lower temperature than water, so bringing this to a full boil will strip off most of the bourbon. (I flamed off all the alcohol from some rum once and “disappointing” does not begin to describe the results.)

Rest for three minutes. This will give the bourbon a little more time to wash the citrus zest. Yes, it will cool somewhat, but you do the exact same thing when you make a good cup of tea. Think of this as extremely dodgy tea.

Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into an Irish coffee glass. To be clear, this is 8 ounces of bourbon and, at 170, the alcohol doesn’t cook off. You’ll want to share this one with a few fellow revelers to stay upright.

Shockingly, this is very good. Dangerously good. The bourbon is mellowed out by the honey and citrus. It tastes comforting. It has subtle butterscotch notes that suggest that maybe things aren’t that bad. That maybe you’ll get through all this. That maybe you should make another cup—

So I guess the question is this: Is there a way of lightening the Bee-Bee up so you don’t end up making a pass at a hat rack, and yet that doesn’t strip it completely of its dangerously seductive nature?

Maybe.

Modified Bee-Bee

Ingredients

• Zest of 1 lime – dark and leathery
• Zest of 1 orange – calm and demure
• 3 ounces ginger brandy – I like Jacquin’s
• 1 ounce Irish whiskey – I like Paddy’s for this. It brings a lot of flavor, without taking itself too seriously.
• 1 Tablespoon hot honey
• ½ cup boiling water

And that same thermometer, which has probably been surprised and delighted to find itself in an adult beverage today instead of a pork chop.

Again, heat all the ingredients except the water in a small saucepan, over medium-low heat, bringing the mix to 170º.

Again, rest for three minutes.

Strain into an Irish coffee glass, stir in the hot water.

This version of the Bee-Bee doesn’t taste the same as the original, but it has the same “Hey, buddy, I don’t know if anyone has told you lately, but you are very attractive and have a really great sense of style” quality of debauched, contented comfort to it. (Keep in mind that while only half as dangerous as its big brother, this drink still has 4 ounces of alcohol in it. For either drink, sharing is strongly recommended.) The ginger plays well with the spice of the hot honey. The alcohol is still there and lets you know that it is still there, but it plays so well with the citrus that you hardly notice the number of ill-advised ideas you come up with over the next half hour.

Featured photo: The Bee-Bee. Photo by John Fladd.

A lot of us feel a crisis of confidence in December. We like to think of ourselves as imaginative, creative people, but then we find ourselves surrounded by actually creative people bringing their crafting A-games. We are inundated with pine cone wreaths, hand-knitted sweaters of llamas drinking eggnog, and festive crocheted door knob cozies. It’s enough to make a person anxious. It’s easy to say that nobody is crafting at you, but any time spent in book clubs or PTO meetings puts the lie to that.

Here is an easy way to win some crafting street cred.

What you will need

Some white chocolate – I use white chocolate disks, made for bakers and candy-makers, but a bar of white chocolate from a convenience store would work just as well.

Powdered food coloring – Melted chocolate (you will be melting the chocolate) is extremely finicky. If it comes in contact with even a tiny amount of moisture, it will seize up. Liquid food coloring, and even gel, will make your chocolate very difficult to work with.

Something to stir your melted chocolate with – popsicle sticks are good for this, although the stem end of a spoon would work just as well.

A dry-erase marker. Also, tiny brushes to paint with.

Paper towels

A plain cocktail glass

Your overly excitable plastic container – see Hint No. 1

Using your dry-erase pen, draw a simple picture on the outside of your martini glass. Let’s try something fairly straightforward, a Christmas tree with a couple of presents.

OK, it’s not great. Don’t worry. This is one of the few times in your crafting life that you can be confident in the process. This will turn out well.

Put a small amount of white chocolate on your overly excitable plate. (In my case, it’s a tiny soy sauce dish, presumably for sushi.) Use a smaller amount of chocolate than you think you need. Heat it in the microwave for a surprisingly short amount of time, 15 seconds or so, to start.

Stir the solid-appearing chocolate. If your plate is as excitable as you think, the chocolate will quickly collapse into a molten state. If necessary, hit it with a few more seconds in the microwave.

Stir a little powdered food coloring into your melted chocolate. Start with a small amount, then more, if necessary. Again, if the mixture is a bit stiff, a few more seconds in the microwave will loosen it up.

With your tiny paintbrush, paint the colored chocolate on the inside of the glass, using your drawing as a guide. Because you are painting on glass, think of this like a store window, where you will start with all the details in the foreground, then fill in the background later.

Let’s start with red ribbons on the presents and red ornaments on the tree.

Let’s add some details further in the background: blue presents and ornaments and a brown tree trunk. You could color the white chocolate brown, but I just melted a single chocolate chip and used that.

For the tree itself, I’m going to use two slightly different shades of green. I added a little yellow food coloring to one batch to lighten it up, then a tiny amount of black to darken another. Your first set of blotches will look, er, blotchy. Trust the process.

Hey, suddenly, this is all coming together!

Until you turn the glass around and look at it from the front.

No. Don’t panic. Trust the process. Wipe off the dry erase marker.

Wow. I mean, it’s not perfect, but it would totally shut up Simmons from Accounting at the office party.

You know what we need? A cocktail to go in it.

Pomegranate martini

• 2 ounces Pama Pomegranate Liqueur
• 2 ounces mid-shelf vodka – I’ve been enjoying New Amsterdam lately.

Pour both ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until you hear the ice start to shatter.

Pour your very cold drink into your newly decorated cocktail glass.

Considering it’s only got two ingredients, this is a surprisingly sophisticated drink. The sweet/sour fruitiness of the pomegranate hits you first but is replaced by a fairly bracing booziness from the vodka. The sourness of the liqueur activates your salivary glands, so you get a really “juicy” overall impression from it.

Now the question you are probably asking is, “Won’t the drink wash away the chocolate?”

Actually, no. Your drink is very cold, so the chocolate is unlikely to melt. And, remember when we talked about chocolate’s tendency to seize when exposed to liquid? We’re using that to our advantage here. The water content of the vodka, plus the diluted ice, panics the chocolate, which clings to the side of the glass for dear life.

If you rinse this glass out gently with very cold water, you can probably get three or four uses out of it.

Featured photo: Pomegranate Martini in hand painted glass. Photo by John Fladd.

There are two great scenes in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street:

“Hey, Lou! How many letters do we have to Santy Clause down at the Dead Letter Office?”

“I don’t know — there must be fifty thousand. Bags and bags of them comin’ in every day….”

Charlie — because I’ve decided that his name is Charlie — gets thoughtful for a second. The scene cuts to the courthouse, where things don’t look good for Santa Claus, or maybe Kris Kringle, who is defending his sanity in court. He doesn’t want to be institutionalized. The D.A. doesn’t actually want to institutionalize him and risk alienating his own children. The judge, who is worried about re-election, doesn’t want to fit Santa with extra-long sleeves on Christmas Eve.

Then Lou and Charlie and the other postal workers give them all a legal loophole and save Christmas. It’s a brilliantly cynical bit of emotional manipulation. I love it.

Even better is at the beginning of the movie, when it’s discovered that the Macy’s Parade Santa is soused and can’t finish the parade. How can that not have happened at least once in real life?

In that spirit, here are a trio of drinks to enjoy while you watch the parade this week.

Macy’s Parade

• 1 ounce apple brandy – I like Laird’s Applejack
• 1 ounce rye – I’ve been enjoying Knob Creek
• ½ ounce cranberry syrup – see below
• ¼ ounce Cynar – yes, the stuff with the artichoke on the label
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Pour all ingredients over ice in a mixing glass. Stir gently.

Let rest 15 to 20 minutes, to let the ice chill and dilute this very authoritative cocktail.

Strain into a coupé glass, and drink while singing show tunes along with the lip-synching, float-riding Broadway stars with overly bright eyes. Do this until your teenage child threatens arson.

This drink, courtesy of Craig Eliason in Minnesota, is not a light, frivolous cocktail. It is sweet, boozy, and a little herbal, courtesy of the Cynar and the bitters. It stares you in the eye and dares you to get cynical about the parade.

“Don’t you dare make fun of Al Roker,” it tells you in a low growl.

Cranberry Syrup

Combine frozen whole cranberries with an equal amount of white sugar, by weight, in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, mashing the berries with a potato masher once they have thawed. By using frozen berries, you have forced ice crystals to stab through all the cell walls of the cranberries, encouraging them to give up their juice.

Bring to a boil, to make sure that all the sugar has dissolved, then strain, battle and cool. This should last a very long time in your refrigerator, but the point is somewhat academic, because the odds are very good that you will use it all to make cranberry margaritas throughout the holiday season.

Parade Route

• 1½ ounces rye
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ¾ ounce simple syrup
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• 4 to 5 ounces sparkling rosé

Combine the rye, lemon juice, syrup and bitters with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake and chill thoroughly.

Strain into a small Collins glass. Top with sparking rosé.

This is light and delicious. For reasons that defy mere logic, it turns out that rye and sparkling wine go really well together. The sweetness from the syrup takes the edge off the booziness, and the lemon juice keeps things from getting too sweet.

If you decide to double down, here’s your next stop:

34th Street Miracle

• 1 ounce cognac
• 1 ounce orange curaçao
• 1 ounce orange juice
• 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake and chill.

Strain into a cocktail glass

The orange juice and orange liqueur go together extremely well in this drink — no surprise there. The cognac adds a boozy backbone to keep things from getting too orangey — not vodka or gin boozy, but something a little more gracious and civilized. The lemon juice keeps everything from taking itself too seriously.

At this point, when the Parade finally gets to Macy’s, is where you should weepily sing “Over the River and Through the Woods” in at least three different keys. Your family will encourage you to go take a nap. Everybody wins.