Author: John Fladd

The Paisley Jane

At the risk of oversharing, it seems like when it comes to decision-making I have two settings: overthinking or not thinking at all.

Throughout my life, a series of exasperated parents, bemused drill sergeants and my long-suffering wife have asked me, in varying degrees of anxiety, “What were you THINKING!?” To which, I only have one answer: “Uhhh… what?”

And then, there’s the other extreme.

Sometimes, without warning, I will fall down a rabbit hole of obsession, hyper-focusing on some objectively trivial matter. Last week, after watching a movie where one of the characters had to go on the run and retrieved a “go bag,” I spent hours thinking about what would go in my go bag, how much of what currency should go in it, and how I could inconspicuously buy everything I needed with untraceable cash. Never mind that I would probably never need to flee anywhere, or that I’m too fundamentally lazy and timid to do it if I had to; the fact remains that I spent hours working out an elaborate escape plan. (The secret is to include a Flowbee in the bag, so I can shave my head in a convenience store bathroom, then grow a beard, to blend in with all the other aging hipsters.)

And then, there’s the orgeat. Orgeat (supposedly pronounced “Oor-Jot”) is an almond syrup that is used a lot in tropical drinks to add depth and a sweet fruitiness to the background flavor. I’m mostly alone in this, but I think it tastes a bit like maraschino cherries. People with a more sophisticated palate than mine get very particular about their orgeat, saying that the cheap stuff tastes “artificial.” (I kind of like “artificial”, but they do have a point. The more chi-chi stuff definitely tastes more sophisticated.)

Some people will even go so far as to make their own orgeat.

[There… Right there… Did you hear it? The ominous music in the soundtrack as I start to overthink things?]

I was reading recipes for homemade orgeat — some simple, others much more complex and involved — when I started to wonder about making it from pistachios, rather than almonds. This led to more research than I can really justify, and several trips to the store, for ever-larger amounts of raw pistachios.

In the end, here’s what I came up with:

Pistachio Orgeat
Equal parts, by volume:
• sugar
• water
• raw, shelled pistachios

1. Chop the pistachios in a blender
2. Boil the sugar and water together to make a simple syrup
3. Steep the pistachio crumbs in the syrup for several hours
4. Strain the pistachio solids out, then squeeze

The Paisley Jane
• 2 slices of cucumber
• ½ oz. unsweetened pomegranate or cranberry juice
• 1½ oz. vodka
• 1½ oz. pistachio orgeat
• ½ oz. full fat plain yogurt
• Exactly 3 drops rose water (seriously – no more, no less. Trust me on this.)
• A pinch of sumac powder for garnish (Not optional. See below.)

1. Place the cucumber slices at the bottom of a cocktail shaker, then top them with ice. If you do it this way, you don’t have to muddle or bruise the cucumber. The ice will do it for you.
2. Add all the other ingredients except the sumac.
3. Shake vigorously for longer than you think you actually need to. Remember that you are throwing down a beating on the cucumbers.
4. Strain over ice into a rocks glass or an Old Fashioned glass.
5. Top with a generous pinch of sumac.

A note on sumac: Sumac is a Middle Eastern spice that has a distinct, sour, astringent note to it. It is one of the garnishes called for in the original Hazy Jane recipe. Without it, this pistachio version is missing something. You can buy sumac at any Middle Eastern grocery store or online.
You have to be somewhat obsessive to try this, but the good news is that you won’t have to drastically change your appearance.

Featured photo: Paisley Jane. Photo by John Fladd.

The Jungle Bird

He stumbled in off the street, leaving the dust and noise behind.

“Afternoon, Mr. Peterson. The usual?”

“Hi, Charlie. I think I need The Bird today.”

Charlie mixed the drink and slid it to Peterson without a word. He knew from long experience that on days like this, words were like razors to the older man.

Peterson stared at the pink depths of his drink for a minute, then for a minute longer, then closed his eyes and took a long pull. For a moment — just the fraction of a breath — he was back in Kuala Lumpur. He didn’t even remember her name anymore.

All he had … was this.

The Jungle Bird was first created at a luxury hotel in Kuala Lumpur* in the 1970s as a welcome drink for arriving guests. It is often referred to as a tiki drink, but I think that is a bit misleading. Yes, this cocktail is built around rum and fruit — in this case, the classic combination of pineapple and lime — but it isn’t at all kitschy; it has an elegance about it. It dances on the edge of being almost too sweet, but is pulled back from the brink at the last moment by the addition of Campari, which adds bitterness and emphasizes the alcoholic taste of the rum. It announces to the world, in a quiet way, that you have hidden depths.

(* The capital of Malaysia. I had to look it up.)

A brief rant about pineapple juice:

In theory, you could juice your own pineapple, and if you were to find yourself somewhere with a ready supply of great, fresh pineapples, that would be an excellent idea. But for most of us the most consistent and convenient source of pineapple juice is from a can. That’s fine. There’s no shame in canned pineapple juice — except perhaps from a historical colonial perspective, but let’s set that aside for the moment — but there is a problem with it. Most cans of pineapple juice are enormous — generally 46 ounces. Even if you think ahead enough to buy a six-pack of tiny six-ounce cans of it, six ounces of pineapple juice is enough for four Jungle Birds, which means that either you are blessed with friends or you’ve settled in for the evening.

I get around this by using a silicone baby food freezer tray — basically an ice cube tray designed to allow parents to freeze neat one-ounce pucks of baby food for future use. Mine came with a snap-on lid, which means that I don’t spill the juice on my way to the freezer. Because it’s made of silicone, I can easily pop each pre-measured pineapple puck into a zip-close bag for future use without it sticking to the mold like it might in a traditional, metal ice cube tray. Just make sure to thaw your juice before adding it to your cocktail; frozen juice won’t melt any faster than the ice in your shaker and might throw your drink proportions off (30 seconds in the microwave is just about perfect to melt two ounces).

The Jungle Bird
Ingredients:
• 1½ ounces dark rum – preferably Myers’s or Pusser’s
• ¾ ounce Campari
• ½ ounce simple syrup
• 1½ ounces pineapple juice
• ½ ounce fresh lime juice
Pour all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker, including the spent half of a lime that is left over from juicing it. (Why? I feel like it adds depth to the fruit flavor in the background of the drink. Can I prove it? Not even remotely.)

Shake the cocktail until it is very cold. You will know that it is cold enough when the outside of your shaker isn’t just wet with condensation but visibly frosts and your hands start to burn with the cold. Pain is the price you pay for excellence.

Pour into a rocks glass, discarding the lime rind, which at this point has given everything it has to this operation.

Historical purists will tell you to garnish a Jungle Bird with pineapple fronds carved into the shape of a bird. I feel like that was appropriate in the lobby of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, but is a bit too precious for anywhere less exotic. Drink it ungarnished.
Peterson would not tolerate a paper umbrella.

Featured photo: The Jungle Bird. Photo by John Fladd.