“Well, you know how it goes; everyone’s busy — kinda part of the job description — but they’re not busy here at the moment. What about you? Looks like you’ve had a rough one.”
“Ugh. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. You know Sylvia? The worker on Level Three? Yeah, anyway, she came in with a story about a case of strawberries that fell off the back of a truck and got smashed all over the highway. It sounded like a sweet gig — all the sugar, half the flying — so I shot out of here and went to find it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Yeah, but I’m such a freakin’ genius that I didn’t wait around and watch her whole dance. It turns out she’s got a bit of an accent on account of she’s missing part of her left foreleg and I got the directions muddled. I ended up downtown at a dumpster behind a burger joint.”
“Oof! Sorry.”
“Well, it wasn’t so bad. It turns out there was a library about a block away with a window box full of geraniums, so I ended up meeting my quota.”
“That’s our girl! You always come through for us in the clutch.”
“Yeah, thanks, but it’s not getting any easier. I’m not two weeks old anymore.”
“Her Imperial Majesty should be pleased.”
“The Queen? Yeah, I hope so. You know, I met her once.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, she’s really nice. Turns out her name is Betty. She likes showtunes.”
“Really? I’d’ve figured her for classical.”
“Nah! Our Betty’s real down-to-earth.”
“She’d kinda have to be, though; she doesn’t fly anymore — not since her mating flight. Wow! That was somethin’, huh?”
“I’ll have to take your word for it; a bit before my time, I’m afraid. Hey, set me up with another one, would ya, please?”
The Bee’s Knees
This is a classic cocktail from the 1920s. “The bee’s knees” was a catchy slang term of the time, describing something that was truly excellent, like “the cat’s pajamas” or “the elephant’s instep.” Not surprisingly, this is honey-based.
This is a type of drink I call a Basic Utility Cocktail. Margaritas, gimlets and classic daiquiris all follow a very similar recipe: roughly two ounces of a basic alcohol (blanco tequila, rum, gin, vodka, etc.), an ounce or so of syrup or sweet liqueur (this is where the triple sec or Grand Marnier would come into play in a margarita), and an ounce or so of a sour fruit juice (usually lemon or lime juice, but I’ve used cranberry juice, too). If you find yourself with too much fruit, it’s really easy to make it into a syrup to use in a seasonal drink. (Cucumbers work surprisingly well.)
Ingredients:
2 ounces very cold gin – depending on what type of honey you use, you might want to use something a little bracing and not too expensive. I’ve been enjoying Wiggly Bridge lately.
¾ ounce honey syrup (see below)
¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
Combine all ingredients over ice in a shaker.
Shake ever so hard, long enough for your hands to start hurting from the cold.
Strain into a small, stemmed glass — a coupé glass, maybe.
This is a seductive cocktail. The sweetness of the honey syrup contrasts with the acidity of the lemon juice. The gin adds a slight harshness to the background that keeps this drink from becoming frivolous. It is absolutely delicious, and the colder it is the more you find yourself wondering where your drink went, then making another. Appropriately for a bee-themed drink, this is a social cocktail; it facilitates conversation.
Honey Syrup
Bring equal parts honey and water to a boil over medium heat.
Let the mixture boil for a few seconds, to make sure that the honey is completely dissolved.
Cool and bottle. Store indefinitely in your refrigerator.
I had an instructor tell me once that it’s important to listen to your heartbeat or think very hard about your breathing. The way he put it, your brain is like a monkey that is always looking for something to do, so you need to distract it with counting and stuff.
“That makes sense,” I thought to myself. “Because, when you think about it, monkeys are pretty mystical creatures. It’s weird how wizards and witches have familiars and patronuses like cats or elk, because it would be really something to meditate and manifest a pack of angry mandrills. And actually, Angry Mandrill would be a really good name for a high-proof, banana-flavored rum. Maybe with chilies in it….”
And I missed another opportunity for self-enlightenment.
The only time I actually ever succeeded at meditating, it happened — as so many important things in life do — when I wasn’t trying to.
At one point in my youth, I found myself broke on the streets of Mombasa, on the East Coast of Africa. Well, not broke-broke — not George Orwell broke — but not in a position to be picky about my hotel accommodations. Somehow, I found myself surprised at how hot and humid it was. This should not have been much of a shock, as I was on the Equator, about a mile from the Indian Ocean, but The Obvious has always been a bit of a blind spot for me.
I needed someplace to stay, and I followed a couple of German backpackers to a not-quite-scary, kind-of-OK-if-you-squinted-at-it-hard-enough hotel. I managed to score a room for a couple of dollars a night.
(As it turned out, the reason the cheapest room was so cheap was that its window was right next to the loudspeaker of the mosque next door that called worshipers to prayer at five each morning. But that’s another story.)
Obviously, my room didn’t have anything like air conditioning — though there was a large ceiling fan over my bed — and I didn’t have any money to go out at night, but that was OK, because the sheer, overwhelming heat and humidity sucked away any enthusiasm I might have had to do anything anyway.
For two nights, I lay on my bed all night, under the fan sweating.
I kept two or three liters of water by the bed and I would alternate sweating and drinking, drinking and sweating. Taking in water, and feeling it seep back out of me. Over and over again.
It was the single most meditative experience of my life.
So, as I look at the weather forecast for the next week, with temperatures and humidity predicted to be in the 90s, I find myself somewhat uncharacteristically nostalgic for Mombasa.
Mombasa Michelada
A michelada is a Mexican beer cocktail. Many people make theirs very much like a bloody mary, with tomato or even clam juice, spices and sometimes an extra shot of tequila. I like mine a little on the lighter side to facilitate the whole meditative sweating thing.
1 lime wedge and some chili-lime spice to rim the edge of your glass or mug. I like Tajin.
2 oz. passion fruit cocktail – you can find this on the top shelf in the juice aisle at your supermarket
½ teaspoon hot sauce – I like Cholula
½ teaspoon miso paste
A pinch of celery salt
A pinch of black pepper
A handful of torn and mangled cilantro leaves
A bottle of Pilsner or lager beer – you can’t go wrong with something Mexican like Modelo
Rub the rim of your glass with your lime wedge, then set it aside for your garnish. Sprinkle some of your chili-lime powder on a plate and touch the rim of your glass down in it to rim the edge of the glass.
Chop or tear your cilantro and put it in the bottom of your glass. This is optional, if you are one of those people who think it tastes like soap, but it is highly recommended.
Fill the glass halfway with ice. This is somewhat heretical; you have been warned.
In a separate dish or cup, mix the hot sauce, miso, celery salt and pepper into a paste. Slowly mix in the passion fruit juice, until it is all smoothly mixed. Pour the mixture into your glass.
Fill the glass with beer and garnish with your lime wedge. Stir gently.
Beer, spice and acidity are excellent playmates. This is a surprisingly meditative drink.
Hmm. Delicious, but maybe a bit strong — add more beer.
Oh, that’s good! But now the cilantro is taking over a little — add a little more juice.
Repeat.
I’m not saying that this experience will be the same as lying under a fan on the equator, counting the cracks in the ceiling, but I recommend it anyway.
Featured photo. Mombasa Michelada. Photo by John Fladd.
Because I am a humble man, I don’t often bring this up, but it has bearing on today’s topic, so I’ll say it now and get it out of the way, so we can move on.
I make the World’s Best Breakfast Sandwich.
I know; it seems unlikely. You’d expect the inventor of such an important — dare I say, landmark? — development to be a tall, handsome, strapping man of great intelligence and taste. You’d be disappointed.
And, of course, you’ve got the lunch-counter lawyers who will want to get into the whole, “How can you quantify matters of personal preference?” Some people might even argue, “How do you even define the word ‘sandwich’, anyway?” — you know, the same people who like to start the argument about whether a hot dog is a sandwich or whether breakfast cereal is soup. Those jerks. [Editor’s note: Hippo totally and with troublemaker intent stirred this pot in our Best of 2022. Hippo readers pretty definitively said 76 to 24 percent that a hot dog is not a sandwich.]
But the fact remains that there is one clear best breakfast sandwich, and I’m the guy who invented it. I am so confident of this that I have it on my resumé, which has provoked several extended discussions during job interviews. I haven’t always gotten those jobs, but by the time I left, the various hiring committees knew what to make for breakfast the next morning.
Here is how you make it:
Toast one slice of plain, ordinary, white sandwich bread. If you try to use a snobbier, artisanal bread, this whole dish will collapse philosophically.
Spread the bread with a confident layer of peanut butter — natural, processed, it doesn’t matter. It has to be actual peanut butter, though. Almond butter, sunflower butter, tahini, these are all fine, admirable ingredients but this is not the job for them.
On top of the peanut butter, arrange a layer of pickled jalapeños — not fresh ones, not a splash of hot sauce. Pickled. Jalapeños.
Top the jalapeños with a fluffy scrambled egg. Not egg whites. Not whipped tofu.
Scrambled. Egg.
“Yeah, but I like a fried egg, and I don’t really see why—”
Shhhh.
One. Scrambled. Egg.
Season with a pinch of coarse salt and fresh ground pepper.
You and I both know how this is going to go down:
You’re going to try to prove how open-minded you are and you’ll make this — well, a version of it, anyway. You’ll substitute a self-respecting slice of sourdough for the sandwich bread, or you’ll use some fresh chiles you’ve got growing in your garden. You’ll make it, and eat it, and shrug your shoulders and say, “It’s OK, but I’m not sure what he’s making such a big deal about.” And you’ll move on with your life, burdened with just a little less respect for me than you had before.
And then, one day, when you need it most — when it is freezing rain outside, and the character you love the most on that show you like has gotten herself killed by a radioactive wombat, and work is terrible, and you just had a big fight, and you hate the world — on that day, you will make this sandwich the way it was meant to be eaten and you will feel the fragments of your broken heart start to slip back into place.
“OK,” I hear you say. “This is all certainly very … colorful and all, but what — if anything — does this have to do with cocktails?”
Oh, right.
I’m sure you already know this, but this Friday is the 94th anniversary of the first commercially sliced bread, which is, of course, one of the key developments that make this sandwich possible. And as long as we’re talking, in a roundabout sort of way, about bread that doesn’t get enough respect, let’s make a cocktail that honors another forgotten hero of the bread world: pumpernickel.
Pumpernickel Manhattan
Ingredients
1 Tablespoon caraway seeds
1 Tablespoon cocoa nibs
1½ ounces rye whiskey – I like Maker’s Mark
1½ ounces red vermouth
10 drops cardamom bitters
10 drops orange bitters
Thoroughly muddle the caraway seeds and cocoa nibs in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. (You could also use a mortar and pestle for this.) Add the rye, and swirl to combine.
Leave the whiskey, caraway and cocoa nibs for at least an hour, to get to know each other better.
Using a fine-meshed strainer, strain the rye over ice, in a mixing glass. Add the vermouth and bitters, then stir gently.
Pour into a rocks glass, and sip slowly.
Pumpernickel — the bread — is a close cousin of rye bread; that’s why we’re using rye for this Manhattan, rather than the more traditional bourbon. Its dark color comes from cocoa powder, and like all self-respecting ryes, it has caraway seeds to give it some [vague, punching motion]. As with any self-respecting Manhattan, the predominant flavor here comes from the whiskey — this is why we’ve used a fairly upscale rye — but the caraway and cocoa linger and remind you who you are dealing with. They are subtle about it — it doesn’t shout, “CARAWAY! WE’VE GOT CARAWAY, HERE!” but they leave you thinking about the finer points of pumpernickel bread.
As you should.
Featured photo. Pumpernickel Manhattan. Photo by John Fladd.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you are a teacher. You’ve finally broken down your classroom, covered all your bookcases with paper and answered the last of the emails from angry parents. Or, hypothetically, you’ve just pulled your last shift for the week at the convenience store, waiting on increasingly angry customers, who have never learned to say “Please” or “Good morning” and want to know why you, personally, have raised the price of gas.
Or, hypothetically, you’ve wrapped up another week at the DMV where—
You know what? Let’s just stipulate that you are feeling worn out and a little bit battered, emotionally, and now you’ve got a few precious hours to yourself to sit on the deck, or wallow around in an inflatable pool, and get your Cool back.
Because you are cool. You have distinct memories of being cool, sometime in the distant past. “You’re so cool!” somebody told you once. Or you think they did. Or was that a movie? It might be Samuel L. Jackson or Helen Mirren you are thinking of.
Anyway, you know that there is some cool floating around somewhere and you’re pretty sure you can absorb it, if you can just unclench your shoulders and let it soak into you.
Here’s an unsolicited suggestion of how to do that.
Step 1 – Music
Put on “Take 5” by Dave Brubeck or “A Taste of Honey” by Herb Alpert.
I know — this isn’t your usual music; it’s something you imagine some old, not-cool person would listen to. Trust me on this. You can listen to your regular country or heavy metal or Mongolian opera later. For now you need this very specific type of jazz. Remember that shoulder-unclenching we talked about before? This will help you do it.
Step 2 – Take Your Shoes Off
Do it. Even if you’ve been wearing sandals all day, sitting in bare feet will send a message to your clenching parts.
Step 3 – Drink This (It’s a Process)
Take Five
Ingredients
2 ounces mango-infused rum (see below)
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce rhubarb syrup (see below)
1 bottle or can of your favorite seltzer — I like Topo Chico
Combine the rum, lemon juice and syrup in a cocktail shaker, and shake over ice.
Pour into a tall Collins glass. Top with seltzer.
This will be sweet and tart and definitely like something somebody cool would drink, except—
Maybe? Maybe, it’s a little too sweet and boozy?
Take another sip to be sure.
Yup, just a little too concentrated. But, hey! Look at that! There’s an inch or so of room at the top of the glass now, for more seltzer. Top it off again.
Now, it’s perfect. **Sip, sip**
Oh — and look! There’s a little more room in the glass; better top it off again.
Still perfect. Slightly different, but absolutely delightful. **Sip, sip**
And again.
Eventually, you’ll run out of seltzer, which would be a really good excuse to make a second drink.
This time, try listening to Louis Armstrong sing, “Just One of Those Things.” Trust me.
Mango-Infused Rum
Combine 4 cups of white rum with 5 ounces or so of dried mango in your blender. Blend it to a rough-smoothie consistency.
Let the mixture steep for an hour or so, then strain it through a fine-meshed strainer and bottle. The mango will hold onto a fair amount of the rum, but you will be left with a beautiful, apricot-colored alcohol that will look really good in your liquor cabinet and taste like reggae music.
Rhubarb Syrup
Combine an equal amount, by weight, of frozen diced rhubarb and white sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb gives up its juice and the syrup mixture comes to a boil.
Remove from the heat, cover, and allow it to steep for one hour.
Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, pressing on the rhubarb to encourage any additional liquid to drain out.
Bottle the syrup, and keep it in your refrigerator. Add the juice of one lemon to the rhubarb, and eat it on ice cream.
In her Little House books Laura Ingalls Wilder made a big deal out of the changing of the seasons. Fall was an obvious one with all the emphasis on the harvest, etc., but springtime was also a really big deal for her.
In one of the books — I don’t specifically remember which one — she goes into a four- or five-page reverie about her mother making the first salad of the year. She describes the lettuce that she grew, and how her ma would make a dressing out of bacon drippings and vinegar.
“Oh, Ma!” the barefoot kids would cry, “Salad!”
“Hooray! Salad!”
“By gum, Caroline,” her Pa would say, “You beat everyone else all hollow for making salad!”
And Ma would blush, and admit that while it wasn’t perfect, it was, in fact, a pretty good salad.”
And I, as a child of the ’70s, would stop reading briefly, and shout at the book.
“Seriously, people! It’s a salad! Get over it!”
What I didn’t or couldn’t realize at the time was that this frontier family had just come off a winter of living on potatoes, salt pork and hardtack, and now even the potatoes were gone. They all had early-stage rickets and scurvy. Fresh, leafy greens must have hit their systems like a vitamin A speedball.
Now, while we haven’t spent the winter locked up in a one-room shanty on the prairie, we are coming off a long takeout and frozen dinner jag. Many of us have spent the past week or two standing in our gardens, hands on hips, staring down at the seedlings and going, “WELL?!”
The big stuff — the cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn — is still a long way off, but we are starting to get a few tiny things, vegetable flirtations, if you will, from our gardens.
Springtime Cocktail #1
Peas and mint are a classic combination. My question was a matter of ratios — how much mint to how many peas?
I looked through many, many recipes and found very little agreement. But Martha Stewart advised 10 ounces of peas to 1/3 cup of mint leaves, and if there is anyone I would put blind trust in on this matter, it would be Martha.
The great thing about this recipe is that aside from washing the peas and mint, you don’t have to pluck, chop or process them in any fussy way.
Preparing the gin:
1/3 cup (8 grams) fresh mint — Don’t worry about plucking the leaves. The stems will work well here, too.
10 ounces fresh sugar snap peas or snow peas in their pods
10 ounces (285 grams) medium-quality gin — I used Gordon’s
Measure all three ingredients into a blender — a kitchen scale is excellent for this.
Blend thoroughly for a minute or so.
Leave the mixture to steep for an hour.
Strain with a fine-meshed kitchen strainer.
Your yield will be about a cup (8 ounces) of Bright Green Gin — enough for four cocktails.
The cocktail itself:
2 ounces Bright Green Gin
1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
¾ ounce amaretto
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.
Shake.
Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
This is what I call a classic Utility Cocktail recipe — two parts alcohol, one part citrus juice, ¾ part syrup or liqueur.
Amaretto has a reputation of being a bully and taking over any drink it’s a part of. When used judiciously, it is an excellent team player. Peas go extremely well with mint – that’s a given. They also go with lemon and with almonds. All these ingredients play extremely well together.
The first thing you notice, of course, is the color, a bright vibrant green that even the amaretto won’t dull. The pea flavor is distinct but not overly assertive. The acid of the lemon juice brightens everything up.
It is startlingly delicious.
And holds off scurvy. There’s no sense in taking chances.
(One observation: The Bright Green Gin has a short shelf life. It will start losing its vibrant color and flavor within a couple of hours, so it is best to drink it right away. This is a perfect before-dinner cocktail to share with friends, or for two of you to have two apiece.)
Featured photo. Springtime Cocktail. Photo by John Fladd.
When we think of summer drinking, cocktails usually aren’t the first thing to spring to mind.
We imagine a friend tossing a cold can of beer to someone at a clam bake, or sharing a bottle of chardonnay on ice on the deck of your summer house in the Hamptons. (I assume that you are a fancier person than me; it sort of goes without saying.) Mixed drinks fall somewhat farther down on the list.
But when we do get to actual cocktails, I, at least, find myself thinking about pitcher drinks. The idea of sharing extremely cold drinks with a group of friends seems really appealing. So let’s look at five summer drinks that lend themselves to pitcher-izing.
Because drinking cocktails by the pitcher is a generally social activity, let’s look at some potential parties that don’t require a huge amount of effort but complement those drinks. At the same time, that intensity of socializing can be stressful for some people, so let’s also include two summer drinks that lend themselves to drinking quietly and alone.
Getting Started – How to Scale Up a Cocktail Recipe
At first glance, making drinks by the pitcher seems pretty straightforward — just multiply each ingredient by the number of people you want to serve.
As soon as you start to do that, however, things get confusing.
“I want to make five of these, but will they fit in that pitcher? And what about the ice? Is there some sort of formula to calculate the volume of ice cubes? Does pi get involved somewhere in there? HONEY? DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT PI IS?”
As it turns out, math is involved, but it’s friendly Schoolhouse Rock-type math, not the “Two trains leave the station traveling in opposite directions” type.
• First, get yourself a pitcher. I used a standard 60-ounce food service pitcher — the type you would get drinks in at most restaurants. I wanted to be authentic about all this, so I bought it at a restaurant supply store.
• Next, add ice. It doesn’t matter what type of ice you use at this point — the stuff your freezer makes for you, ice tray ice, novelty shaped ice from a silicone mold, block ice that you’ve attacked with an ice pick (and if you’ve never tried that before, I heartily recommend it) — any of it will work. Fill the pitcher up about 1/3 of the way with the ice of your choice.
• Just add water. Top your pitcher off with water. It doesn’t have to be to the extreme, worrying-about-spilling-it top — just fill it to the level that suits you. The amount of water you just added is the same volume as the drinks you will want to make in this pitcher.
• Measure the water. This is where the math comes in. Remain calm. Pour the water out into a separate container, so you can measure it. Use a kitchen strainer and another pitcher or a large bowl to hold the water. Now measure it.
I like to use a digital kitchen scale, because mine has an option to measure ingredients in milliliters. If you want to use a scale but it doesn’t have the milliliter option, grams will work just as well. (Important tip: If you are a pharmacist, grams and milliliters are not the same thing. If you’re cooking or mixing drinks at home, they pretty much are.)
Alternatively, measure the water with your largest measuring cup. If yours has measurements along one side in fluid ounces, you are golden. Just write down how many ounces of water you just poured out.
The rest of us will have to do some calculations.
For instance, according to my kitchen scale, the non-ice volume of my pitcher is 1,240 ml. A quick internet calculation — “Convert 1,240 ml to fluid ounces” — indicates that I’m looking at a final cocktail volume of around 42 fluid ounces.
A pitcher with a drink-ready amount of ice. Photo by John Fladd.
Let’s say I’m making a pitcher of daiquiris. My recipe calls for two ounces of rum, an ounce of fresh-squeezed lime juice, and ¾ of an ounce of simple syrup. That works out to 3.75 ounces.
Now the math. Are you ready?
Divide the big number by the small number.
That’s it.
42 divided by 3.75 equals 11.2. Let’s round that out to 11. (You are welcome to round up or down freely; you can make up any difference with more or less ice.)
Now I know that for a pitcher of this particular drink I’ll need to multiply each ingredient by 11. I’ll make each round of drinks in the pitcher, adding the ice last, to bring the volume up to where I want it.
Which means that it’s time for a party.
Party #1: A Piñata Party
When my wife and I got married, we decided to have a backyard cookout for our rehearsal dinner. My wife planned the menu, chose the music, cooked five or six different side dishes, coordinated parking and got hotel rooms — in distantly separate hotels — for my parents.
I bought a piñata.
In my defense, the piñata was a solid call. My friends and family exist in a swamp of anxiety and social awkwardness that would intimidate the reed marshes of the Nile Delta. It was somewhat inevitable that at some point one of my friends would tell an off-color joke to a nun, or my mother would have a “just-being-honest” moment. If — OK, when — things got tense, I could shout out, “Hey, everybody! It’s piñata time!” We’d break open a piñata, people would be distracted, and we could quietly shuffle the conversation groups around.
I bought a piñata shaped like a large, red parrot. Because this was a special occasion, I went to a chocolate store and bought a couple hundred round, foil-wrapped truffles, and filled Polly pretty much to the top. I put her on the stairs leading up from the basement, where she would stay cool but we wouldn’t forget her.
On the day of the rehearsal, my soon-to-be father-in-law kept tripping over the parrot. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was in his way, so he relocated it to the kitchen counter, where he wouldn’t have to deal with it.
The piñata was now in my soon-to-be mother-in-law’s way, so she tasked my 6-year-old nephew with finding someplace to put it. He put it in the only empty space he could find — in the sun on the deck.
To make a long story short – several hours later, things did get awkward and tense at the dinner. I did announce “piñata time!” My new brother-in-law laid into the piñata with an awesome move he’d seen in a samurai movie. The piñata burst, splattering everyone at the party with melted chocolate. My wife’s maid of honor made a joke about “parrot blood” and a small child cried so hard that she did that dancing-in-place thing that only truly traumatized kids can do.
So, what I’m saying is that I’m a big fan of piñatas. And as such, I’d like to put in a word for making your own.
(1) Professionally made piñatas are built like dump trucks. They are almost impossible for casual, perhaps slightly inebriated, party-goers to break with a stick. This makes sense when you consider that they have to survive shipping from the piñata factory intact. If you make your own out of papier mâché, you can make it as fragile as you like.
(2) The hole in a standard piñata is about the size of a golf ball, which severely limits creative stuffing options. If you make your own piñata, you can leave a large access hole, fill it, then paper over the hole. In the reference photo to the right, I have filled my partially completed piñata with a copy of the Mr. Boston Bartending Guide, 10 pairs of socks and a can of chickpeas, with enough room left over for a live cat. [Editor’s note: This is just a fanciful amount-of-space descriptor. Do not attempt to put a live cat in a piñata. Don’t @ us, cats.]
What drink accompanies a piñata?
A margarita is a summertime classic; a cucumber one, doubly so. There are only three ingredients in this, so you will probably want to splurge on a decent tequila. The bar in Albuquerque where I first had this suggested Hornitos. Who am I to argue with them? This is a pitcher-drink natural.
One Cucumber Margarita
3 slices (~45 grams) cucumber with skin
2 ounces Blanco tequila – I prefer Hornitos
1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
¾ ounce cucumber syrup (see below)
Muddle the cucumber slices thoroughly in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
Add ice, lime juice, syrup and tequila. Shake until very cold.
Strain into a chilled rocks or margarita glass.
A Pitcher of Cucumber Margarita
1 medium cucumber, unpeeled and sliced – about 300 grams.
22 ounces blanco tequila – roughly 3 cups
11 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
7 ounces cucumber syrup – one scant cup
Muddle the cucumber slices in the bottom of your pitcher. I use the pestle from my largest mortar and pestle — it’s about the size of a billy club — but a potato masher would work well, too.
Add the lime juice, syrup and tequila. Stir gently but thoroughly. Top the pitcher off with ice, and stir again.
This pitcher recipe is deliberately a little intense. If you prepare it about 20 minutes before serving, the ice will dilute it just enough. It will be perfect.
Cucumber Syrup
Ingredients
Equal amounts, by weight, of cucumbers and white sugar. Any type of cucumber — whatever makes you happy, or is threatening to take over your garden.
Wash, but don’t peel, the cucumber. Chop it to a medium dice.
Freeze the cucumber chunks for an hour or so. Ice crystals will form and perforate the cell walls inside the cucumber, making it more enthusiastic about giving up its juice.
Combine the frozen cucumber and sugar in a saucepan, over medium heat, stirring occasionally. As it thaws, the cucumber will start giving off a surprising amount of liquid. You really won’t need to add any water.
As more liquid appears, mash the cucumber with a potato masher, just to encourage the process along.
Bring the mixture to a boil, and let it boil for 15 or 20 more seconds, to make sure the sugar is completely dissolved into solution.
Remove the pan from heat, cover, and steep for 30 minutes.
Mash with the potato masher one more time, then strain and bottle.
This isn’t actually a step, but have some of this cucumber syrup on your yogurt. You will start smiling at people in traffic.
Cucumber Margarita and Tres Leches Cake. Photo by John Fladd.
Julia Child once said that any party without cake is just a meeting. She was very wise.
If you aren’t familiar with Tres Leches Cake, you are in for the dessert ride of your life. It is the Prince of Cakes and a perfect accompaniment to our margarita and piñata.
Tres Leches Cake
Ingredients
1 boxed yellow cake mix + ingredients needed to bake it.
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup (8 ounces) half & half
2 cups heavy cream
simple syrup to taste
Prepare the boxed cake mix according to instructions, in a 9×13” pan.
Allow it to cool thoroughly.
Using skewers or sharp chopsticks, poke holes in the cake, every ½ inch or so.
Mix evaporated milk, condensed milk and half & half together in a large measuring cup.
Pour over the cake, still in its pan. It will puddle on top; do not panic. The cake will eventually absorb all three milks (todos de tres leches).
Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least eight hours. This cake is at its best ice-cold. The extra time in the fridge will also allow the cake and milk mixture to meld at an almost philosophical level.
Just before serving, whip the heavy cream with just enough simple syrup to be lightly sweet. Cover the cake with the whipped cream.
“Wait a second!” you say. “That’s not tres leches! The whipped cream makes it cuatro leches!”
And you’re right, of course. Nevertheless, whether or not this cake is misnamed, you will become a convert after your first — then your inevitable second, third, etc. — bite.
Do you remember mushing birthday cake together with vanilla ice cream when you were a kid? The mixture of cake and ice cream was one of the best parts of going to a birthday party. This is like that — only thought out and designed to provide the perfect cake-to-dairy ratio. The slightly stodgy sweetness of the cake is balanced by the ice-cold milk glaze that you have soaked it with. If you use a light hand with sugar syrup in the whipped cream, you will balance the in-your-face nature of the dairy-soaked cake with something unexpected: subtlety.
Party #2: A Tomato Brunch
Burrata is the piñata of cheese.
Imagine a shiny, white, perfectly smooth ball of mozzarella, sitting modestly on a plate.
Now, imagine an Italian hand model — let’s call her Bianca — picking up a silver serving knife, and gently but firmly cutting into it, revealing an inside filled with cream and a fluffy über-cheese called stracciatella.
We might stand in a mild state of shocked wonder, and think vaguely about asking for some of this burrata — because that is what it is called, burrata — but we wait just a little too long and miss our window of opportunity. Bianca deftly transfers the burrata — mozzarella, stracciatella and all — to a serving platter and carries it out to the balcony, where a count in a tweed jacket waits for her.
Steven Freeman thinks about this sort of thing a lot. Freeman is the owner of Angela’s Pasta and Cheese Shop in Manchester, and he takes burrata very seriously. Even more so the stracciatella that it is filled with.
“If you love burrata, you will lust after stracciatella,” he assures me.
He is feeling extremely ardent about stracciatella at the moment, because after many, many months of trying to get his hands on some, he has finally tracked down a source and has started selling it in his store. He assures me that if I were to eat fresh stracciatella with perfectly ripe tomatoes and pink salt, I might reassess some of my priorities in life.
I buy some stracciatella and hunt down a really good tomato. I take the pair home, thank the tomato for the sacrifice it is about to make, then slice it up and spoon some of the cheese onto it.
Bloody Maria served with sliced tomatoes and stracciatella. Photo by John Fladd.
Freeman wasn’t lying.
I mean, I’m not going to quit my job and abandon my family to run off with a pint of Italian cheese or anything, but it is very, very good. It is intensely creamy and is perfectly set off by the acidity of the tomato.
Which reminds me that we are only a month or so away from tomato season and when the really good tomatoes hit the farmers markets, we should have a tomato party. Or in this case, a brunch.
For the food, I suggest tomatoes, olives and cheese. Perhaps some pumpernickel toast, if you are feeling especially adventurous.
For the beverage, there is really only one logical candidate, when you think about it: bloody marys, or bloody marias, in this case. Contrasting fresh, ripe tomatoes with a perfectly seasoned glass of tomato juice with a hint of tequila in the background will make for an excellent accompaniment to nice people and good conversation.
One Bloody Maria
2 ounces Blanco tequila – again, I prefer Hornitos
4 ounces freshly squeezed tomato juice (see below)
½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
1½ teaspoon prepared horseradish
½ teaspoon miso paste
1 teaspoon of your favorite hot sauce
A pinch of celery salt
A pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice.
Shake vigorously, for longer than you normally would — at least one full minute — to make sure the miso dissolves completely.
Pour into a tall glass and for the sake of all that is good and decent in the Universe, please do not garnish the glass with 72 items. They would only distract from the tomato-ness of the situation.
If you have gotten a decent batch of tomatoes, sitting with pleasant company and actually paying attention to your bloody maria will be a bit of a revelation. A perfectly ripe tomato (see below) is a complex and beautiful fruit. Its natural sweetness and acidity will play off the savoriness of the miso and the bite of heat from your hot sauce.
A Pitcher of Bloody Marias
14 ounces Blanco tequila – 1¾ cups
28 ounces fresh squeezed tomato juice (see below)
3½ ounces fresh squeezed lemon juice
3½ Tablespoons prepared horseradish
3½ teaspoons miso paste
3½ teaspoons hot sauce of your choice
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon celery salt
If you have a very large jar with a tight-fitting lid, add all the ingredients to that, then seal and shake it vigorously. If you do not own such a jar, add all the ingredients to your pitcher, then blend briefly with an immersion blender. If you do not own a large jar or an immersion blender, add all the ingredients to your pitcher, then mix vigorously with a whisk.
If you have not done so yet, transfer the mixture to your pitcher, then top it off with ice.
Serve in tall glasses and drink while listening to Herb Alpert.
Homemade Tomato Juice
To make the really good stuff, you’re going to have to search through the farmers market for the right person. You can look over the tomatoes themselves, but ultimately you are going to have to put your fate in the hands of the person selling them.
Establish your credentials by telling them that you are making bloody marys — specifically, bloody marias. He or she will nod, unsmiling, at you. If they ask how many tomatoes you want, get six pounds. That sounds like a lot, but it is what you need.
The tomatoes you get will not be pretty, but like the person you chose to sell them to you, they have seen some things. These will be tomatoes with some mileage on them.
How to juice your tomatoes:
Wash your tomatoes, but don’t bother to core or peel them.
Working in batches if you have to, blitz them in your blender.
Strain them through a fine-mesh strainer.
In a large pot, bring the tomato juice and two teaspoons of salt to a boil.
Remove from heat and chill overnight in the refrigerator.
Tomatoes have a naturally occurring enzyme that kills off a lot of their flavor if they are exposed to cold temperatures. Bringing the juice to a boil neutralizes those enzymes and allows some of the more subtle flavors of the tomatoes to remain, even after chilling.
Party #3: A French Fry Party
Last year, we threw a french fry party.
It was supposed to celebrate a crop of really spectacular potatoes that I had raised over the summer, but the potatoes had other ideas and we ended up just buying potatoes and frying them ourselves. The party was extremely successful, but custom-frying that many potatoes turned out to be extremely labor-intensive.
French 75 served with your guests’ french fry favorites. Photo by John Fladd.
So I’ve had an idea: We invite extremely nice and cool people — more or less the same friends we had over last year — but each of them needs to bring a bag of their favorite frozen potatoes and an air fryer if they have one. We set up air fryers at strategic points around the kitchen and dining room, and each guest can make their own custom french fry mixture — hypothetically, a combination of shoelace fries, tater tots and smiley-face fries.
And to drink? A couple of years ago, a major Champagne producer announced that the perfect drink pairing with french fries is — surprise, surprise — Champagne.
I’ll buy that — I can see where a Champagne enthusiast would really like the contrast of the cold, dry bubbly and the hot, salty fries — but I think we can take things a step further, to a classic cocktail called a French 75. Champagne still plays a lead role, but it is backed up by gin, lemon juice and simple syrup. In this iteration I’ve subbed out the simple syrup for a slightly less simple rhubarb syrup, which adds an extra element of complexity to this drink and gives it a pretty, pink color.
One French 75
1 ounce dry gin – I like Wiggly Bridge for this
½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
½ ounce rhubarb syrup (see below)
3 ounces Champagne
In a cocktail shaker, combine gin, lemon juice and rhubarb syrup, over ice. Shake vigorously.
Strain into a Champagne flute. Top with Champagne.
Feel very classy as you drink this, in between snarfing down your fries.
A Large-ish Batch of French 75s
It is totally possible to prepare this drink ahead of time, at least partially, but it requires some more math. A single French 75 calls for three ounces of Champagne. A standard bottle of sparkling wine contains 750 milliliters, or just over 25 fluid ounces. That means that we should prepare enough non-Champagne mixture for eight cocktails for every bottle of Champagne.
8 ounces dry gin
4 ounces fresh squeezed lemon juice
4 ounces rhubarb syrup (see below)
1 bottle Brut Champagne
Using a funnel, fill an empty bottle — a fancy decanter, if you have one — with the gin, lemon juice and rhubarb syrup. Cap and shake to combine.
Chill for several hours, or overnight.
To serve, pour two ounces of the mixture into each Champagne flute, then top with Champagne.
Rhubarb Syrup
Wash, then chop fresh rhubarb to a medium dice, then freeze overnight. Alternatively, buy pre-frozen, pre-chopped rhubarb.
In a saucepan, combine the frozen rhubarb and an equal amount (by weight) of white sugar and a pinch of salt.
Cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, to fully dissolve any sugar into solution.
Remove from heat, cover, and allow to steep for 30 minutes.
Strain and bottle. This should keep in your refrigerator for about a month.
Party #4: Scorpion Bowl for One
“This is all well and good,” you might say, “if I were a Party Person. I used to think I liked parties, but at this point in my life, after a long week at work, the only socializing I want to do is with my houseplants.”
That’s a fair point. Let’s see what we can do for you.
A Scorpion Bowl for One (and maybe your houseplant). Photo by John Fladd.
Many of us went through a phase in our youth of ordering absurd numbers of absurd drinks. Perhaps the most absurd of those drinks was the Scorpion Bowl.
Scorpion Bowls — a mixture of fruit juices and injudicious amounts of alcohol — were always served in elaborate bowls with several straws. The conceit of the cocktail is that it was supposed to be shared with a group of friends. In point of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anyone sharing one.
But can we re-engineer a Scorpion Bowl to bring that same sense of adventure to an evening with the houseplants, without the dread of danger that accompanied it in our youth?
A Traditional Scorpion Bowl
2 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
4 ounces fresh squeezed orange juice
1½ ounces simple syrup, or better yet, rhubarb syrup (see above)
2 ounces orgeat (almond syrup)
2 ounces brandy
4 ounces dry gin
4 ounces golden rum
Divide the amount of ice that you would normally put in your pitcher in half. Put one half in your pitcher.
Add all the ingredients to the ice in your pitcher.
Wrap your remaining ice in a tea towel. Beat it mercilessly with a blunt object, until the ice is shattered into several different-sized pieces.
Add the brutalized ice to your pitcher and stir to combine all ingredients together.
Pour into a large bowl or flower vase and garnish with several oversized straws to help sell the lie that this will be shared.
A Scorpion Bowl for One
⅔ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
1⅓ ounces fresh squeezed orange juice
½ ounce simple or rhubarb syrup (see above)
⅔ ounce orgeat (almond syrup)
⅔ ounce brandy
1⅓ ounces dry gin
1⅓ ounces golden rum
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker.
Wrap 15 or so ice cubes in a tea towel and shatter them with a blunt object.
Add the shattered ice to the shaker and shake your cocktail thoroughly.
Pour unstrained into a tiki glass or other whimsical container. Drink with one straw.
The genius of a Scorpion Bowl is that someone very carefully made a list of classic Tiki drink ingredients and chose seven that complement each other beautifully. The limes are sour and acidic. The oranges are sweet and acidic. The syrups smooth out the acidity, which in turn keeps the syrups from making things sickly sweet. Almond is a classic, get-along-with-everybody ingredient and serves as a bridge between the different liquors, which might not get along with each other otherwise.
Party #5: Just You and Jackie O’
“Alas,” I hear you sigh. “Even that is a little more intense than I was looking for. I want something I can enjoy with a good book in the hours after I load the kids on the bus to summer camp. Do you have anything like that?”
The Jackie O’s Rose, for a quiet moment. Photo by John Fladd.
As it happens, I do. Let’s set you up with a Jackie O’s Rose.
Think of this as a rose-kissed daiquiri. It’s a combination of standard daiquiri ingredients — white rum, simple syrup and lime juice — with a drop or two of orange curacao and a hint of rose water. The lime and the rum are extremely refreshing, and the rose water makes it a tiny bit exotic. It’s a very good sitting-by-yourself cocktail. It asks nothing of you. It just sits with you and enjoys your company.
Jackie O’s Rose
2 ounces white rum
½ ounce orange curacao
1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
½ ounce simple syrup
½ teaspoon rose water
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker, and shake with ice.
Pour into any glass you choose. Strain the ice out if you want to, or leave it in. This is a very undemanding drink.
Drink in calm and silence.
A Pitcher of Jackie O’s Rose
20 ounces white rum
5 ounces orange curacao
10 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
5 ounces simple syrup
1 ounce rose water
Combine all ingredients in a pitcher.
Top with ice.
Stir.
Serve in a variety of glasses and teacups.
Yes, I know. You wanted to be alone. But what if you’ve got four friends who want to sit quietly with you?
